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| - Claim: Ghanaian chef holds the Guinness World Record (GWR) for longest cooking marathon
Source: Ebenezer Smith
Verdict: FALSE
Researched by Abdur Rahman Shaban
On Tuesday, July 2, 2024, news of a Guinness World Record (GWR) feat by a Ghanaian chef was widely reported by a number of local and international media outlets including the BBC, Graphic Online and GBC Online.
Chef Ebenezer Smith, alias the Millennium Chef, claimed he had been duly ratified as the new record holder for the longest cooking marathon by an individual by the global records entity at a press conference at the La Palm Beach Hotel.
A banner at the conference room’s entrance proclaimed: “Press Conference. Unveiling the New World Cook-a-Thon Record Holder,” announcing he had been crowned the new cook-a-thon record holder with a time of 802 hours, 25 minutes to dethrone Irish cook, Alan Fisher.
He also displayed a certificate reportedly from GWR confirming his new feat.
Figure 1: The supposed GWR certificate Chef Smith displayed on July 2, 2024
Fact-Check
To verify the claim, GhanaFact sent an email to GWR to confirm the widely reported information and further conducted a visual comparison of previous record certificates and the one Chef Smith displayed at the press conference.
“No, this is not true at all. He does not hold the GWR title and that is not our certificate. The current record holder is:
“The longest cooking marathon (individual) is 119hr 57 min 16 sec and was achieved by Alan Fisher (Ireland) in Matsue, Shimane, Japan, from 28 September to 3 October 2023,” the Public Relations Manager at GWR, Madalyn Bielfeld stated in an email.
Figure 2: Screengrab of GWR email to GhanaFact
Comparing the supposed GWR certificate Chef Smith displayed to the media and the GWR certificates presented to one-year-old Ghanaian record holder Ace-Liam Nana Sam Ankrah, who was in July 2024 confirmed as the youngest artist (male) and the one presented to Nigerian Hilda Bassey for her cook-a-thon feat in May 2023, GhanaFact also noticed some differences.
Figure 3: GWR certificates presented to Hilda Bassey (L) and Ace-Liam Ankrah (R)
While the two official certificates had silver frames, with GWR’s seal embossed plus a dark blue thick outer boundary, that of Chef Smith had a black frame and a black thick outer boundary.
Media houses delete record confirmation reports
Major media houses in Ghana including Multimedia duo of myjoyonline.com and adomonline.com carried the story of the record breaking feat. Others who carried the story included 3news, GhanaWeb, Pulse Ghana and Yen.com.gh.
AmeyawDebrah.com, state-owned duo, gbconline.com and graphic.com.gh also carried the story as did the BBC Pidgin Service – later the BBC updated the story citing the GWR denial of the claim and the email sent to GHOne TV.
Some media outlets have since deleted the original news articles they published annoucing the cook-a-thon record (here, here, here), while others have also deleted their social media posts regarding the subject.
Verdict
The claim is rated FALSE.
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