NEW YORK — A Nigerian chess champion and baby training advocate has performed chess nonstop for 58 hours in New York Metropolis’s Occasions Sq. to interrupt the Guinness World Document for the longest chess marathon.
Tunde Onakoya, 29, hopes to boost $1 million for youngsters’s training throughout Africa by way of the file try that started on Wednesday.
He crossed the 58-hour mark at about 02:30 a.m. GMT Saturday, surpassing the present chess marathon file of 56 hours, 9 minutes and 37 seconds, achieved in 2018 by Hallvard Haug Flatebø and Sjur Ferkingstad, each from Norway.
The Guinness World Document group has but to publicly remark about Onakoya’s try. It generally takes weeks for the group to verify any new file.
Onakoya performed in opposition to Shawn Martinez, an American chess champion, according to Guinness World Document pointers that any try to interrupt the file have to be made by two gamers who would play constantly for the whole period.
Assist had been rising on-line and on the scene, the place a mix of African music stored onlookers and supporters entertained amid cheers and applause.
The file try is “for the desires of tens of millions of youngsters throughout Africa with out entry to training,” mentioned Onakoya, who based Chess in Slums Africa in 2018. The group desires to assist the training of at the least 1 million kids in slums throughout the continent.
“My power is at 100% proper now as a result of my persons are right here supporting me with music,” Onakoya mentioned Thursday night after the gamers crossed the 24-hour mark.
On Onakoya’s menu: A number of water and jollof rice, certainly one of West Africa’s best-known dishes.
For each hour of recreation performed, Onakoya and his opponent received solely 5 minutes’ break. The breaks had been generally grouped collectively, and Onakoya used them to meet up with Nigerians and New Yorkers cheering him on. He even joined in with their dancing generally.
A complete of $22,000 was raised inside the first 20 hours of the try, mentioned Taiwo Adeyemi, Onakoya’s supervisor.
“The assist has been overwhelming from Nigerians within the U.S., international leaders, celebrities and a whole lot of passersby,” he mentioned.
Onakoya’s try was carefully adopted in Nigeria, the place he often organizes chess competitions for younger individuals dwelling on the streets.
Greater than 10 million kids are out of college within the West African nation — one of many world’s highest charges.
Amongst those that have publicly supported him are celebrities and public workplace holders, together with Nigeria’s former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who wrote to Onakoya on the social media platform X, “Keep in mind your personal highly effective phrases: ‘It’s attainable to do nice issues from a small place.’”
___
This model corrects that Osinbajo is Nigeria’s former vp, not present vp.
___
Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria.
