Standing at a mighty 6 feet and 9 inches or 2.1 metres, is 30-year-old Russian, Ekaterina
Lisina. What makes her unique apart from towering over most females is that she is officially
recognised for being the “World’s Tallest Model” and has the record for having world’s
longest legs for a woman at 52 inches as well as having the biggest feet of any woman in
Russia. Before launching her modelling career, Lisina played basketball professionally…
as a lot of tall people do… and competed for Russia at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics,
winning a bronze medal. She has since left the sport for the catwalk and has attracted
a lot of media attention from it. Finding clothes and shoes that fit can be a struggle
but she’s comfortable with her body and is happy living out her dream job as a professional
model.
Rolf Bucholz from Germany, is officially recognised for having “the most piercings for a male”
with a staggering 453 piercings; 158 in and around his lips, 16 in his right ear, 15 in
his left ear, 25 in his eyebrows, 8 in his nose, 2 in his tongue, 8 in the rest of his
body, 3 in his nipples, 4 in his belly button and wait for it… 278 in his genital regions.
Not only is Bucholz pierced out of his mind but he’s also covered in tattoos from head
to toe and even has horn implants in his head. Despite having 278 piercings in his genitalia,
Bucholz boasts of a great sex life… it makes me think I stay inside too much. He was even
once denied entry to Dubai as authorities were afraid that he was a practitioner of
black magic. You wouldn’t want to see him in a dark alleyway, would you?
*Sniff* Can you smell something? Known as “The World’s Dirtiest Man”, Amoo Hadji,
has that nickname for a reason. Living in the outskirts of a remote village in Iran,
84-year-old, Amoo Hadji hasn’t washed himself in more than 60 years. His skin is coated
in decades of dirt and soot to the point that he blends in with his surroundings. Hadji
doesn’t wash as he believes being clean will make him sick so he chooses to live a
primitive lifestyle, which includes cooking one of his favourite delicacies, rotten porcupine.
If you thought that was dirty, the 84-year-old Iranian also likes to smoke animal dung from
a steel pipe. He’s probably still a very “down to earth” guy though… When it
comes to nightfall, Hadji either sleeps in a hole in the ground or in an open brick shack
that was built by concerned locals. It’s remarkable how he is happy living with so
little but if he’s happy, he’s happy I guess.
Liam Hoekstra is not your typical toddler. In fact, he may well be a real-life Superman
or Superboy rather. At the age of just five months, he performed an iron cross, a move
widely recognised in gymnastics that requires a lot of strength. At the age of six months,
Hoekstra could walk up and down the stairs on his own, at the age of one, he could do
chin-ups and before his second birthday, he could move furniture around. So, how was he
able to do all this and is he a real-life superboy? Hoekstra’s extraordinary strength
is due to a rare genetic myostatin-related condition called “muscle hypertrophy”.
This is a condition where the body builds muscle faster than normal while also inhibiting
fat at the same time. As a result, Liam has very little body fat and has 40% more muscle
than others his age. Thankfully, the condition doesn’t affect his heart and now, he’s
enjoying life as a 12-year-old playing hockey. The moral of the story here, don’t try and
steal this kid’s candy.
Dubbed “The Man Who Can Run Forever”, Dean Karnazes is an American ultramarathon
runner and a general iron man. He can run for days without the need for rest and in
2005, he did just that as he ran 350 miles or 560 km in 80 hours and 44 minutes without
any sleep. Some of his other notable achievements include: running a marathon in each of the
50 U.S. States in 50 consecutive days and running a marathon in the South Pole in -25°C
or -13°F without snowshoes. Karnazes superhuman endurance is due to a rare genetic condition,
which allows his body to rapidly flush any build-up of lactic acid from his system. This
means that he never experiences cramp or feels tired when running and he regularly runs the
equivalent of a marathon every morning before breakfast. Karnazes said, “I don’t care
how fast I go. I care about how far I go.”