Virgin staff make record leap

Sir Richard Branson and more than 1,000 of his Virgin employees have set the world leapfrog record.

At a staff party in fields behind the billionaire's home in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, 1,109 people leapfrogged simultaneously - smashing the existing record of 849, set by members of Brookfield Community School in Chesterfield, Derbys, on September 29 last year.

Adjudicators from the Guinness Book of Records had to cancel at the last minute but Sir Richard's record is expected to stand when Guinness staff see a list of signatures from every Virgin participant as well as copious reels of video footage of the madcap event.

Formal ratification of the feat is due next week.

Guinness guidelines state that a leapfrog record must entail at least five minutes of the activity by all participants at once.

"We're confident we did it," said one Virgin worker.

"The goal was 1,000 and we smashed that."

Sir Richard, with champion swimmer Sharron Davies and London 2012 Olympics bid chief executive Keith Mills, started the record attempt, dubbed Leap For London.

Afterwards, Sir Richard said: "It's wonderful to celebrate Virgin's success with 40,000 of our people at a party at my home and it's great that 11,000 of them gave up some time to Leap for London's 2012 Olympic bid.

"Everybody had a lot of fun even if one or two will be spending time with their chiropractors and back specialists next week."

link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040904/344/f1xih.html