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WORLD RECORD

VIDEO: Norway makes world’s biggest chess board

A world record for the biggest chess board was set in the town of Brekstad in Norway’s Sør-Trøndelag region on Sunday.

Published: 13 June 2017 11:45 CEST
VIDEO: Norway makes world’s biggest chess board
Norwegian grandmaster Simen Agdestein won the world's largest scale chess match. File photo: Erlend Aas/NTB scanpix

The board, measuring at 6,400 square metres, hosted a match between Norwegian grandmaster Simen Agdestein and Germand rival grandmaster Niklas Hushenbeth.

Photographer Pål Åge Røstad posted spectacular drone footage of the event on Facebook on Monday.

“The record has been approved and will be in the Guinness Book of Records,” Hallgeir Grøntvedt of Ørland Cultural Centre told NRK.

Chess rivals Agdestein and Huschenbeth stood on cranes at the side of the board to move their pieces, who were all played by local people.

“We were very luck with the weather. It started to rain just as the black king was put in checkmate,” Grøntvedt told Adresseavisen.

READ ALSO: Norway makes world record ice cream cone

After an hour and a half’s play on the giant board, the checkmate went to Agdestein.

“Sure, it was a bit unusual using an enormous board and a bit special, but it was a fantastic event,” the grandmaster told NRK.

“We were lifted very high up, so we had a good view. But to be honest, I mostly had the positions of the pieces in my head,” Agdestein added.

“The board was fantastic, and the view was wonderful, we could see across the fjord and it was cool with all the living pieces,” he said.

The previous Guinness record for the largest chess board stood at 5.89 square metres. 

READ ALSO: Norway town breaks book domino record

KEBAB

Berliners break world record with 423kg döner kebab

The largest döner kebab in the world was served at the Mall of Berlin on Friday, breaking the previous world record held by Australians from 2004.

Published: 23 October 2017 10:56 CEST
Berliners break world record with 423kg döner kebab
Photo: DPA.

Back then, an Australian team had produced a 413 kilogram döner kebab. But Berliners managed to break that record by a narrow margin in the creation of a giant döner that was even larger, weighing in at 423.5 kilograms.

“More gigantic, meatier, juicier and saucier – our döner kebab is simply gigantic,” said morning presenter Big Moe of 98.8 KISS FM. The winning team consisted of several other employees from the Berlin-based radio station.

Originally the giant döner weighed 847 kilograms when put on the scales. But according to judge Olaf Kuchenbecker from the Rekord-Institut für Deutschland (RID), it could not be judged as a whole because at the time of weighing the flatbread consisted of two parts.

The giant döner was therefore cut into two pieces and “the larger piece broke the record,” Kuchenbecker said.

“The fact that there are now two portions of döner at around 423.5 kilos each is absolutely amazing! We have set the world record twice and it tastes great,” said Big Moe.

For those skeptical of the quality of the ingredients used in creating a humongous version of Germany's favoured fast food, the giant kebab was prepared using real flatbread and filled with classic components such as döner meat, lettuce and red and white cabbage.

The event drew in hundreds of spectators. Photo: DPA.

“The kebab was made for consumption,” said programme director at KISS FM, York Strempel.

“It had to be not only tasty and big, but also top quality,” Strempel added.

But the team used herb sauce rather than garlic sauce that döner is traditionally served with, as this would have been “offensive in terms of smell” for a kebab of this size, according to Kuchenbecker.

After the final weigh-in, the kebab was cut up and distributed among a crowd of around 400 lucky spectators free of charge.

SEE ALSO: This is what is really inside your Döner kebab