'Toledo Turbo' wins 56-storey tower race: 'Practice run' for his 68th world record

SPAIN'S world-famous 'Recordman' has surpassed even his own expectations – not content with having more entries in the Guinness Book of Records than anyone else in the country, Dr Christian López has just won a race to the top of the nation's fourth-tallest building.

Since we introduced Christian to our readers in November 2020 to help him celebrate his 40th world record, he has upped his total by nearly 75% in those 18 months, now hitting 67.

The sports instructor and motivational speaker from Cabañas de Sagra (Toledo province), now 34, only needs to smash one more record, and he'll have two for every year of his life.

This time, though, he was not even trying to pocket another entry – Christian's sprint up 1,320 stairs in under eight minutes was merely a training exercise for further record-breaking.

Madrid's Torre Emperador, at 230 metres (754 feet) tall and with 56 floors – completed in 2007 and joined by three more tower blocks the following year in the complex now known as Las Cuatro Torres – was briefly Spain's highest building until the PwC Tower (236 metres), the CEPSA Tower (248 metres) and the Torre de Cristal or 'Glass Tower' (249 metres) knocked it off its throne one by one.

At the moment, the Torre de Cristal is Spain's highest building, although the country's highest structure is a 60-year-old radio-transmitter mast in Guardamar del Segura, southern Alicante province.

Christian himself described the Emperador Tower race as 'daunting', or at least, 'worthy of respect' – more so than one of Spain's best-known skyscraper marathons, up the 186-metre, 54-floor Gran Hotel Bali in Benidorm, which is a 'mere' 924 stairs.

In fact, the Gran Hotel Bali race was the first major fitness test Christian put himself to as a very young man, coming 18th out of over 100 competitors.

He had made this his goal as part of his lifelong mission to look after his physical health following a diagnosis of Type I diabetes when he was 12.

Given that this is the tallest building he has run up to date, Christian needed to adjust his blood-sugar levels very carefully to ensure he would be able to perform.

With a PhD in Sports Science – his thesis was on treating obesity through diet and exercise – Christian's studies have provided him with additional specialist knowledge on managing his own condition, and his glucose-level fine-tuning meant the stair-run 'hardly involved any effort', according to an interview he gave to provincial newspaper La Tribuna de Toledo.

One of the best parts of joining in the Torre Emperador 'vertical marathon' – along with winning it, of course – was the splendid view across the whole of Spain's biggest city once he hit the top.

“I had great fun overtaking so many other runners,” Christian says, “but it was a real luxury, getting to the finishing line and having these privileged views over Madrid at my feet.”

Christian might have left the rest of Spain standing in terms of number of world records, but he has no plans to stop collecting them – Granddad Ernesto wouldn't let him give up his ongoing quest.

A very young Christian was badly affected by the loss of his beloved relative, who had always urged his little grandson to inject courage into everything he did; every Guinness Book of Records entry Christian has achieved, all 67 to date, has been in his grandfather's memory.

The next training race Granddad Ernesto will be accompanying Christian on in spirit is next Saturday, June 4, also in Spain's capital.

Although the Moncloa Lighthouse run will 'only' involve 26 storeys, or fewer than half the number of the Gran Hotel Bali or the Emperador Tower, it is speed test rather than endurance-based.

“It'll be a much more explosive race, so I'll need to get a good rhythm and speed going right from the start,” explains Christian. 

This is set to be another practice in Christian's quest to break his next world record – for the fastest staircase ascent.

With the current track history of the 'Toledo Turbo' in mind, we're not nervous on Christian's behalf – his upwardly-mobile record count does not look likely to slacken its frenetic pace for a while yet.