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UAE: Blindfolded Indian teenager breaks Guinness World Record for bottle flips

Abu Dhabi - The Grade 12 student flipped a partially filled 500ml plastic bottle 37 times in 60 seconds.

An Indian teenager has smashed the world record for the most flips of a plastic bottle in 60 seconds.

Joel Mathew, a student of Grade 12 in GEMS United Indian School, Abu Dhabi, received his Guinness World Records title on Monday, after he beat American Josh Horton’s feat of 27 bottle flips in 60 seconds.

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Horton had achieved his feat blindfolded.

Mathew, too, was blindfolded, and managed to flip a partially filled 500ml plastic water bottle 37 times in 60 seconds, surpassing Horton’s record.

The challenge was to flip the bottle in a way that it completes a 360-degree somersault and then lands upright on a table.

An ecstatic Mathew told Khaleej Times that he had seen an online video five years ago that inspired him to take up the challenge.

“I saw an online video, where I saw a youngster do this trick of flipping a partially filled bottle on a table several times. I found it quite interesting and unique. Soon, I started practising. However, I saw something more challenging last year. I saw Horton doing the same flips blindfolded — so I, too, decided to try and set a new world record,” Mathew said.

He added he was honing his skills of flipping a bottle for an hour and half daily for the past five years.

Last year, he upped his game and tried it blindfolded, including a daily grind of two hours.

Elaborating on the challenging aspects of the record, he said, "The toughest part was to search for the bottle after it landed since I was blindfolded. So, I had to be focused on the sound of the bottle landing. The sound helped me to pick up the bottle from the table.”

In January, he sent the video to the Guinness World Records team.

The video shows him flipping the partially filled plastic water bottle onto a table blindfolded. On the table is a timer, which ticks off the seconds steadily as Mathew flips the bottle repeatedly, making it land ramrod straight.

His father, who recorded the video, can be heard counting the number of flips for Mathew as he tried to break the world record.

Mathew’s learning from the feat underscored yet again that hard work is the key to success.

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“Now, I understand the meaning of the moral aphorism: practice makes a person perfect. It has yielded rich dividends for me. Concentration and focus are the two principles that played an important role in my achievement. Since I was blindfolded, I had to be very focused on my movements — such as the sway, the action, and the force required to land the bottle upright,” said Mathew, a computer science student.

He said he is inspired to break more records, including 50 bottle flips in three minutes, and that, too, blindfolded.

The GEMS United Indian School management is overjoyed at Mathew’s achievement and has urged him to conduct a training session for other pupils to hone their skills in flipping bottles.

saman@khaleejtimes.com

• Abu Dhabi