First published in 1955, the Guinness Book of Records was intended to settle disputes in pub quizzes. It has since taken on a life of its own with a lot of crazy people competing for often bizarre titles. Italy has its fair share of them. In 2012 an Italian team made the largest pizza on record:  a 100% gluten-free pizza that measured 1.261.65 square meters, or about 13,581 square feet.  It was named “Ottavia”; odd to name a first-place pizza “eighth.”  Odder still that the record belongs to Italy, a country known more for its quality than its quantity.

Another record for Italy belongs to Silvio Sabba, a fitness trainer from Rodano, Milan.  His 70 records are a record for his country.  Some are quite bizarre, others are quite athletic and daring.  For example,

• Most squats in one minute carrying an 80-pound pack
• Fastest time to stack ten dice using chopsticks
• Most clothes pins clipped to the face in one minute
• Highest standing jump onto a balance board at 1.208 meters (almost 4 feet)

Here are the 3 truly bizarre ones that you probably should check out on YouTube:  Fastest time to walk 10 meters on empty glass bottles without breaking them.  This requires some serious balance skills and courage.  He did it in just over 25 seconds.

Most socks put on in one minute on one foot.  It takes a lot of strength to pull 45 socks onto one foot in a minute given the amount of friction after just the first sock.

And the most bizarre of all: Most underpants pulled up in 30 seconds. Silvio lays the underwear on a table, grabs one at a time and leaps legs first into them.  The underwear is yanked up at approximately the speed of a Major League fastball.  Imagine cotton and spandex approaching at such speeds.  Any mistake and the damage could be quite devastating.