7 Guinness World Records you probably didn’t know are associated with Ghana

She will be the third Ghanaian to attempt a Guinness World Record in the past month.

What many may not know, however, is that Ghana has a long history of breaking Guinness World Records in various fields as far back as 1969.

Let’s take a deep dive into some World Records that are held by Ghana or Ghanaians.

1. Most penalties missed by an individual at the FIFA World Cup (excluding shoot-outs)

Asamoah Gyan, Ghana’s top scorer of all time, has entered the Records for missing penalties at the World Cup twice.

In 2006, during Ghana’s first appearance at the World Cup in Cologne, Germany, Gyan missed a penalty. He hit the post with a penalty during a match against the Czech Republic on June 17.

But the most painful penalty miss by Gyan that Ghanaians have not been able to forget was in the quarter-final match against Uruguay at the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted by South Africa. Gyan hit the bar in a match that could have made Ghana the first African country to reach the semi-final of a World Cup.

Ghana lost 4-2 on penalties. The match played on July 2, 2010, ended in a 1-1 draw after extra time.

2. First use of DNA profiling

Guinness World Records reports that a British scientist, Sir Alec Jeffreys, developed the method of DNA fingerprinting at Leicester University in the UK and published a paper on its applications in Nature (vol. 314, 67 – 73; 7 March 1985).

The first practical use of the DNA method was in 1985 when it was used to establish the paternity of a child – a Ghanaian who was involved in an immigration dispute.

The youngest son of a Ghanaian family living in the UK had gone to Ghana, but when he came back to the UK, he was suspected of either having a fake passport or being a different person.

Sir Alec used DNA reconstruction of known family members to prove that the boy had the same father as the rest of the family, the Records state.

3. Fastest time to walk over ten obstacles while carrying a person on the head

Two Ghanaian acrobats, Daniel Ashitey Amarh and Richard Mensah Ofori, entered the Records in 2011.

They achieved the fastest time to walk over ten obstacles while carrying a person on the head (standing on one foot). They did it in 21.83 seconds on the set of Lo Show Dei Record, in Milan, Italy, on April 27, 2011.

4. First brothers to play against each other in a FIFA World Cup

The Boateng brothers (Kevin and Jerome Boateng) made history and entered the Records during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

The brothers played against each other in the World Cup, making them the first siblings to play against each other in a World Cup match.

The brothers were born in Germany to a Ghanaian father and raised by different mothers in Berlin, but Kevin-Prince Boateng played for Ghana and Jerome Boateng played for Germany, making them the first brothers to play against each other in the FIFA World Cup in Ghana vs Germany in Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 23, 2010.

The two spent a lot of time together during their childhood, but each decided to represent a different country at the highest level of football.

5. Largest reservoir – surface area

In 1969, Guinness World Records recognized the Volta Lake as the world’s largest man-made lake by surface area.

The lake was created by the construction of the Akosombo dam, which was finished in 1965. By 1969, the lake had covered an area of 8,482km (3,275 miles), with a shoreline of 7,250km (4,500 miles).

6. The shiniest living objects in the world

According to the Records, the shiniest living objects in the world are found in Ghana.

They are the fruits of the marble berry Pollia condensata – a herb that grows up to 1 metre tall and is native to Ghana.

The Records describe the herb as having fruits that look like the shiny ornaments used to decorate Christmas trees. They say that these bright metallic-blue fruits have been shown in scientific studies to reflect about 30% of the total (unpolarised) light, compared to a silver mirror.

This is the highest light reflectivity of any biological material, including bird feathers, beetle shells and even the brilliant blue produced by the scales on the wings of Morpho butterflies, the Records say.

7. Ghana 2004 general elections

The general elections that took place in Ghana in December 2004 also entered the Guinness World Records as part of all the elections that happened that year.

The Records say that in 2004, the most votes were cast for different elections around the world.

More than 1.1 billion voters participated in 58 presidential and parliamentary elections. The first one was in Georgia, which held its Presidential election on January 4, and the last one for 2004 was the third round of Ukraine’s presidential elections on December 26.

Ghana’s elections were on December 7.