Richard de la Mare usually spends two or three minutes upside down every morning, standing on his head. He’s done it most days since he was 20.
One day, up in the position that’s part of his Yoga routine, de la Mare wondered how many other folks his age were spending time on their heads. So he Googled it.
Last week, the jewellery artist and carver at Coast Raven studio received official confirmation that he holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest man to do a headstand.
On Aug. 26, at 77 years and 198 days old, de la Mare held a headstand for 60 seconds in the presence of “special” witnesses required by Guinness (a BC Ferries engineer and a retired RCMP officer, says de la Mare – obviously Guinness doesn’t require BC Ferries and RCMP personnel to verify all their records) at Katherine Denham's Kalijo Pilates Studio in Davis Bay.
de la Mare took the record from Tanios "Tony" Helou of Deux-Montagnes, Quebec, who certified his feat Oct. 6, 2021 at 75 years and 33 days old.
“I was doing the actual performance but I don't know how to do the all the other things that had to be done for the Guinness people,” explains de la Mare, so he had friends like Gibsons’s Stu Young help him with the more technical details of the application.
“He's been doing it for so long, it’s like second nature to him,” says Young. “He’s amazingly flexible and just gets up there upside down every day and makes it look easy.”
de la Mare is matter of fact about his accomplishment, “Of course, there's probably people who could do it at an older age,” he says. “People who wouldn't want to go through all the hassle of the preparation and all you have to do for the enrollment
“Or we just don't think about it.
“[But] one day I thought about it, I Googled it. And sure enough, I realized, ‘Oh, well, I could simply easily beat that.’”
de la Mare says his next goal is to be still doing headstands at 85.
