Kris Osaer (36) and Aloïs Gevaert (25) have broken the Belgian record for propping up the bar. The two men remained on their bar stool at a café in Gistel (West Flanders) for 53 hours. They had started at 3 o'clock on Friday afternoon and had to remain seated until Sunday evening if they were to improve the record. At the stroke of eight o’ clock on Sunday evening, they had broken the Belgian record for barstool sitting.
The idea of breaking the Belgian record for the length of time sitting on a barstool was conceived down the pub. Until Sunday evening, the youngsters of Chiro Joho from Antwerp held the record. They sat at the bar for 52 hours. Kris Osaer, Aloïs Gevaert and Piet Vanhencxthoven (47) wanted to improve this record and chose the Teas&Bees pub in Gistel. Pieter had to give up on Sunday due to health issues, but the manager, Kris, and customer Aloïs made it to the finish.
They had their doubts before they started their record attempt: "The closer the date of the record attempt, the more stress we had. We thought, do we really have to do this? Sitting on a bar stool for 53 hours, not sleeping for two nights. We had to think: what do we drink and what don't we drink? Getting blind drunk was not going to last. But once we got through the second night, then it was OK," says Alois.
Not bored for a minute
Every hour, they were allowed to take a 5-minute pee break. They were also allowed to save up those minutes. In the end, Kris barely used 22 minutes of the total 265 minutes of break permitted and Aloïs used 23. At no point did boredom strike, says Aloïs: "We had a live stream and could talk to people over the internet. I had a computer with me to do some work, but I only used it to watch the Tour de France. People were on hand all night to cheer us on, sometimes up to 100 people. The town of Gistel gave its full support, it’s not only Kris and I that broke the record, all of Gistel helped."
After their record, the men did not immediately plan to sleep. "The adrenaline is still racing. We can't just crawl into bed, we are going to have another party. We both have to work on Monday, life goes on even after our feat," Kris says.