A young Egyptian's dream of getting into the Guinness Book of World Records has finally come true. A few days ago, Mohamed Zeinhom, Egypt's fittest man for six successive years, managed to do 50 press-ups. This might not seem particularly amazing, but the really amazing thing is that Zeinhom did the press-ups using the thumb and forefinger of one hand only. “My father has been training me since I was five,” Zeinhom, 24, said. “He encouraged me to do press-ups and chin-ups,” he told The Gazette in an interview. It took Zeinhom a minute to do the 50 press-ups, smashing the previous record of eight press-ups in a minute. His road to fame has been a bumpy one. He appealed to several local businessmen to sponsor him so that he could invite the Guinness arbiters to Egypt. However, his pleas for the LE100,000 ($18,000) this would cost fell on deaf ears. “I left no stone unturned,” Zeinhom said. “I appealed to almost every satellite channel, but sadly they all used me in a cheap commercial manner.” For two years, Zeinhom …quot; a physical training instructor by profession; tried and tried to get officially recognition as the world's greatest press-upper. But every time he came up against a brick wall. Officials in a sports channel then came up with a great idea. They suggested that he should invite TV and newspaper reporters to the Pyramids Plateau and perform his record-breaking stunt in front of them. This was what he did last Monday to huge applause. He should receive confirmation from Guinness in two weeks' time, when he'll be told that he's the world's top press-upper. “I promise not to stop here,” he said. “There's much more to come.”
