'Toledo Turbo' smashes 90th world record...and 23 just this summer

SOME spend their whole lives trying to break that elusive world record, and a tiny minority achieve it, giving them bragging rights for all eternity.

But then there's Christian, who clocks up a handful every few weeks – in fact, by the time we finish telling you about his latest milestone, he's likely to have surpassed it.

So forgive us if Spain's record recordman's most recent round number is already old news before you get past the first paragraph of this article.

After all, the sports instructor and motivational speaker from Cabañas de Sagra (Toledo province) normally only needs a few seconds to break a world record, which means it's tough keeping up.

When we introduced Dr Christian López to our readers in November 2020, the sporting ace was 32 years old and we boasted on his behalf about how he had one-and-a-quarter world records to his name for every year of his life.

That seemed like small fry when, in May this year, we told you about how he had upped his total by almost 75%, to 67.

Back then, he ran up Spain's fourth-tallest building – the Torre Emperador tower block in Madrid, with its 56 storeys and 230-metre (754-foot) structure – in under eight minutes, but not to set a record. It was merely practice for breaking his 68th which, by now, would have meant two for every year of his life.

And barely three months on, the 'Toledo Turbo' has left his own achievements standing: Christian has just smashed his 90th.

While we were lazing on the beach, moaning about the heat and feeling so lethargic we could barely be bothered to move to turn the fan up a notch, the man who already held more world records than anyone else in Spain was adding another 23 of them to his list.

In the past year and nine months, New Yorker Ashrita Furman – who holds the most Guinness World Records on earth – has upped his own total from 200 to 600, but at Christian's current pace, we wouldn't rule out his overtaking the present global leader one day.

Christian has spent eight months training for this specific record, number 90, and one which is fairly typical of the other 89 feats he has accomplished: The fastest 200-metre run backwards, whilst juggling with three items.

He had to complete it in under 48.59 seconds to earn his place in what will be his eighth consecutive Guinness Book of Records, and comfortably undercut the previous fastest time by six seconds, finishing in 42.59.

"I spent more time picking up balls from the floor than actually running," Christian says of his training ahead of the final performance.

Tower-running, or 'vertical races', are another of Christian's favourite record-breaking activities, along with juggling whilst running, balancing items on his face or finger, ping-pong ball-bouncing, and backwards running or hopping.

Record number 88 saw him sprint up the equivalent number of steps of a 17-storey block, in one minute.

"There were about 10 seconds back there which were total agony," Christian confesses, revealing he completed his self-imposed trial 'absolutely exhausted'.

The 'Toledo Turbo' was diagnosed with Type I diabetes aged 12, and it was this awareness at a very young age of how he would always have to take greater care of his health than a non-diabetic person that led to his passion for sports.

And studying his PhD in treating obesity through diet and exercise has helped him in his mission.

But the real inspiration for Christian's efforts, the true motivation behind his dogged determination to get there in the end, is a person who accompanies his every record-breaking attempt in spirit: Granddad Ernesto.

A very young Christian was badly affected by his beloved relative's passing, and as an adult, his sporting feats have all been in Ernesto's memory, always with the voice of his Granddad in his head reminding him to 'inject courage into everything you do' – just as he would often advise his grandson in life.

Clearly, it's working, and shows how it's always recommended to listen to your grandparents, because they really do know best.