Tony Adams has just had confirmation that he smashed the Guinness World Record of 512 tap beats a minute, previously held in England, with a staggering 602 beats.Crippled at birth, Mr Adams was sent to tap lessons by his mother in the hope it would straighten his calliper-bound legs without invasive surgery. "She lost her mother to a medical misadventure when she was 13, and lost my brother to an operation on a brain tumour, so she wasn't having a bar of me having an operation," he said.
He compared himself to Forrest Gump as a toddler, with crooked, underdeveloped legs, but the discipline and exercise of tap dancing were just the cure.
Mr Adams attended Naenae College, where he was teased by classmates for dancing, but he went on to win many national dance titles and become New Zealand's first male tap-dancing teacher in his late teens.
From the age of 15 he knew he had the skill to break world records, but it was not till early this year that someone challenged him to prove it. He attempted and broke the record live on New Zealand national television.
His speed tap-dancing record equates to an average of 10 tap beats per second, but he reached 15 per second at his fastest.
"It's pretty challenging to sustain that pace for 60 seconds, and a minute has never felt longer," he said. His mother, Mary Adams, 82, watched her son break the record. "I'm very proud of him but I really can't understand what all the fuss is about. He was a much better dancer when he was younger," she said.
His 602 taps were recorded with a microphone and specialised computer software, which converted each individual tap from audio to digital so they could be more easily counted. The technology enables sound waves to be displayed graphically like heartbeats on a heart-rate monitor.
Tap-dancing teacher Jeanette Mullins acted as an official witness at the attempt. She was astonished to see Mr Adams don the patent leather tap shoes he last performed in 32 years ago, describing them as antiques.
