College student breaks Guinness World Record in joggling at Rice University

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

 College student breaks Guinness World Record in joggling at Rice University
University of Florida student doing summer research work at Rice University breaks 23-year-old record

HOUSTON – (July 27, 2012) – Matthew Feldman, a University of Florida student who is conducting research this summer at Rice University, broke a Guinness World Record for joggling – jogging and juggling – tonight at the Rice University running track. Feldman jogged one mile while simultaneously juggling five balls in 6 minutes, 33.65 seconds; he beat the previous record of 7 minutes, 41 seconds held for 23 years by American Bill Gillen.

Feldman’s official attempt at Rice was part of his efforts to raise awareness and money for Isatome, a community of people in the town of Minamisanriku (pronounced mee-NAH-mee-san-ree-ku) affected by last year’s Japanese tsunami.

“I feel pretty good, but I feel pretty tired,” Feldman said. “6:33 isn’t my personal best time, but I feel good about getting the attempt done and obtaining the record.”

The YouTube video is available at http://youtu.be/hYjbu2Bbj88.

“You have to be an Olympic level athlete to run that fast, whilst juggling five balls,” said Albert Lucas, director of Olympic development for the International Sport Juggling Federation. “Matt has broken a record that has stood for 23 years … this is a historic achievement and raises the bar for a the new generation of sport jugglers.”

Feldman also holds Guinness World Records for joggling five balls for 5,000 meters (27:06.74 minutes) and 400 meters (1:10.5 minutes).

Feldman is studying electrical engineering at the University of Florida and working toward degrees in physics and Japanese language. At Rice, Feldman is conducting nanomaterials research in the lab of professor Pulickel Ajayan. He plans to take the fall semester off to do an internship at SpaceX, a private company that designs, manufactures and launches rockets and spacecraft.

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Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.