FREAK CHAMPIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20792, 7 February 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

FREAK CHAMPIONS.

STRANGE FEATS FOR WAGERS. MARATHONS IN AMERICA. There is apparently no limit to tlie number of kinds of freak champions in the United States. Michael S. Petillo, of Nutloy (New Jersey), won a radio-listen-ing contest by listening continuously to a radio for 155 hours without sleep, subsisting on eggs and black coffee and sustained by the knowledge that t*ho prize money would enable him to marry the girl of his choice. Charles Drovc>, of Leroy (New York), held the world's raw egg-eating championship with 40 raw eggs consumed in five minutes, until Max Hinel beat it with 70 raw eggs in as many minutes. Cadarino Nazareno, of Chicago, claimed the catch-as-catch-can spaghetti-eating record after making away with 7ft. of spaghetti per minute for 180 consecutive minutes, or 1260 ft. in three hours.

Alverado Fernando established a marathon dance record in Berlin in 1927 by remaining in motion 145 hours, except for ten minutes' rest every hour A former member of Congress, Ernest Ackerman, of Plainfield (New Jersey), has carried an umbrella, for 45 years as the result of a wager made with a friend in Liverpool. Gus Comstock, of Fergus Falls (Illinois), gulped his way to the coffee-drinking championship by drinking 85 cupsful in seven hours and 15 minutes.

Eugene Leckey, 15, of Brooklyn, set a new kite-flying record .of 48 hours on September 3, 1929.

Mrs. H. B. Schmidt, of Champaign (Minnesota), ciaims the American record of 400 hours in a rocking-chair. She rocked continuously, except for occasional " cat-naps."

Joseph dt> Virgilio, of Boston, walked on stilts from Boston to Providence, 45 miles, in 12 hours and two minutes. The stilts were sft. long and weighed 151b. Bill Williams, of Hondo (Texas), pushed a peanut up Pike's Peak with his nose. It took him 30 days and he won a bet of £IOO. Some of these records are authentic: in others reliable data is missing.