Runners at the Dubai Marathon will have a rare chance to enter the Guinness World Records archive this year, as the global record-keeping authority partners with the marathon to mark the race’s 25th anniversary.

Announced on January 12, 2026, the collaboration invites participants in the February 1 Dubai Marathon to attempt officially recognized world records under the banner “Be Part Of It.” The initiative merges one of the Middle East’s most established distance-running events with the world’s leading authority on record-breaking achievements.

Related: 10 best marathons in the Middle East 

Rather than focusing only on finishing times, the partnership opens the door to a wide range of creative, endurance-based, and community-driven record attempts. Runners can apply for approved Guinness World Records titles across distance categories, or propose new ones through the official Guinness World Records platform.

Among the record categories available are:

– Fastest marathon completed by a father and son together
– Fastest marathon completed by a mother and daughter together

Additional opportunities include records involving sporting equipment, blindfolded running, roller skating, professional attire, novelty endurance challenges, and visually distinctive running formats.

The aim is to expand how athletic achievement is measured — moving beyond pure speed to include connection, creativity, and participation.

All Guinness World Records applications submitted specifically for the Dubai Marathon will be processed free of charge. Participants will also benefit from fast-tracked application reviews and immediate eligibility assessments, making the process more accessible than traditional record attempts.

Fundraising-related record attempts must receive written approval from an officially authorised UAE charitable entity, in line with national regulations.

The initiative also places strong emphasis on inclusion. People with disabilities are encouraged to apply through Guinness World Records’ dedicated Impairment Classification categories, ensuring fair and consistent assessment across all abilities.

Participants can explore record titles or submit proposals in Arabic or English through the Guinness World Records registration page, and can register for the marathon itself via the official Dubai Marathon website.

Now in its 25th year, the Dubai Marathon has established itself as one of the region’s most respected long-distance running events, attracting elite athletes and community runners from around the world. The Guinness World Records collaboration adds a new dimension to the race, turning it into both a competitive sporting event and a platform for storytelling, legacy, and shared achievement.

The post Runners Can Break Guinness World Records at the Dubai Marathon in 2026 appeared first on Green Prophet.

Anyone who hasn’t been to Syria in the last few years can’t possibly grasp the full extent of the horrors Syrians have endured, but we do know it has been unspeakably hard. To take the edge off, a handful of artists in Damascus built what the Guinness Book of Records recently confirmed is the world’s largest mural made with trash.

Led by Moaffak Makhoul, six artists spent six months building the wall using whatever recycled materials they could find. Old spark plugs, broken tiles, keys, rusted iron, bicycle wheels, broken mirrors – all were fair game for the colorful mural.

Measuring 2, 362 square feet in total, the largest mural made with recycled materials in the world, the inspiration piece stands just outside of a primary school in the country’s capital.

Although this part of the country has been relatively unscathed in the three year battle that has killed at least 140,000, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and made refugees of two million, no Syrian is untouched.

Related: Collapsible refugee shelters powered by the sun

Everybody knows somebody who has lost a family member and the atmosphere is undoubtedly tense – particularly for children who have been robbed of the opportunity to live an innocent life.

Makhoul told Reuters that now is the most appropriate time for the mural.

“I’ve been sad to see a lot of my colleagues, artists, all traveling abroad and leaving,” he said. “God be with them and give them luck – but the country also needs all of us.”

Students told Reuters that they are excited about the mural. Not only did it make one child more excited to come to school, but another said the materials made him more aware of what can be done with what some people think of trash.

What a beautiful metaphor – the broken pieces of the country may one day be recombined into a unified, brighter whole – just like this incredible labor of love.

Image via Guinness Book of World Records

The post World’s largest trash mural makes life in Syria a little less awful appeared first on Green Prophet.

The largest collection of theme parks in the world is growing in Dubai, an enormous development of “pleasure zones” with no completion date in sight. They’re not short on money (having raised $55 billion in private investment for the first phase alone); the open end date is largely attributed to the park’s relentless ambitions to expand and develop.

It’s going to be a new city in the desert, a metropolis of actual and virtual fun-tastic amusements where you can live and work and play (and undergo surgery and food shop and be arrested).
The project was unveiled in 2003, with initial plans to spread six distinct “worlds” over 100 square miles. There is Attractions and Experience World, Sports and Outdoor World, and Eco-Tourism World, followed by Themed Leisure and Vacation World, Retail and Entertainment World, and Downtown World.  In total, the complex promised 45 “mega-parks” and hundreds of lesser attractions.

Then, like Sleeping Beauty, it fell asleep.

The 2008 global money mess saw most of the projects shelved and the workforce fired. American entertainment giants including DreamWorks, Universal Studios and Six Flags dropped out of the project.

But Dubai development is relentless, and last September, Dubai Properties Group announced the revival of their Mudon residential project, estimating early 2014 completion.

Some construction resumed this year, with the 72,000 square meter Dubai Miracle Gardens opening last March.  Four areas are now operational, but still undergoing construction:

• Dubai Motor City
• Dubai Outlet Mall
• Global Village
• Al Sahra Desert Resort

Actual development has clearly scaled back.  The reality, pictured below, is incompatible with artists’ renderings.

But this is Dubai, surely someday some variant of this thing will hatch. And what about its environmental impacts?

Attempts to find a formal assessment proved futile; it’s possible each development is being treated as a standalone project.  But positive features promised by, say, “Eco-Tourism World” are surely be offset by the “Snowdome”  that will house a mountain ski deck and snow play area, a toboggan run and ice rink, and something called a “penguin-arium”.

Author disclaimer: I’m allergic to theme parks.  Scratch that: I hate theme parks.  Revise that. I’d chew off my right arm rather than spend time in another American theme park, historically the world’s biggest and loudest and most crammed with overspent, overstressed families. But I have kids, there’s no escape.

The official tagline for Disneyland – I’m talking the original Pasadena park – is “The Happiest Place on Earth”, an ironic claim given the armies of crying kids and frustrated parents, standard ticket-holders every day I went.

What will Dubaiworld’s catchphrase be?

The post Futuristic Dubailand Theme Park City Growing Ahead With $55 Billion appeared first on Green Prophet.

An Iranian confectioner packed five tons of ice cream into a a single container to scoop a new world record in desserts.

When you’ve just clinched the title as “monster rat” breeding grounds, why not sweeten your international appeal with the world’s biggest tub of ice cream? Last week in Tehran, Iranian dairy company Choopan popped the lid off a five-ton tub of chocolate ice cream.  Approximately 70 cubic feet of frosty delight that cost it’s makers over $30,000 to produce.

Choopan CEO Khashayar Baheri told Arab News, “It took us eight hours to fill the tub.” Guinness World Records has yet to declare its verdict, but the World Record Academy says this sets a new world record for the “largest tub of ice cream”.  (I had an aunt who held that title for decades.)

“We recorded exactly how we made the ice cream and we’ll give all the documents to Guinness as evidence to support our attempt,” he added. Representatives of the Guinness World Records did witness the record attempt in Tehran, but could not speak to the media for “security reasons”.

Choopan Dairy Board Member Mohammad Baheri said the company aimed to register a new world record and also boost Iranian ice cream consumption. “Right now, we are breaking the record registered in 2005 by Baskin-Robbins for about four tons,” event organizer Khashayar Baheri told Iran’s state-run Press TV. “We’re breaking that record by one ton.”

Iranians eat an average 3.3. lb of ice cream per year.

Over 10,000 people trekked to a ski resort in the foothills of Tochal, just north of the capital, to get a peek at the prizewinning pudding.  Conservative website Baztab-e-Emrooz reported that the crowd’s enthusiasm dampened when organizers distributed free ice cream that didn’t come from the tub, raising suspicions about the ice cream’s safety and the legitimacy of the record attempt.  (So, maybe that wasn’t ice cream?  The dessert thickens…)

The world record for the largest cup of ice cream  has been held since 2005 by America’s  Baskin-Robbins for their tub of vanilla ice cream weighing 8,865 pounds. Dairy Queen Canada holds the world record for the largest ice cream cake; it weighed in at 22,333.6 pounds.

Choopan dairy, Farsi for “shepherd,” launched its ice cream line last year and claims to be one of Iran’s top three dairy producers, with plans to expand into the Gulf, Middle East and Russian markets. Click this link to see their fun website – in English and Farsi, it offers cute online games for the kids.

The post I Scream, You Scream: Iran Targets World Ice Cream Record appeared first on Green Prophet.

But Turkey has taken a different approach. Instead of relying only on increasing generation capacity, the government has launched a national energy conservation campaign. And this enormous sweater is its intriguing focal point.

As part of the energy conservation campaign, the Bayrampasa municipality in the capital knitted the world’s largest sweater, for which they received the Guinness World Record.

Knitted with roughly 1,100 pounds of wool by 90 people over one month, the oversized sweater measures 151 feet long and 52.5 feet wide and was displayed on the side of a tall building.

It boasts two rows of vertical stripes on either flank of the front, along with two Turkish flags – one on the sleeve and another on the breast.

This initiative is part of the government’s strategy to encourage people to turn down their thermometers and wear warmer clothes, a move that could save up to $2 billion in energy costs every year.

Bayrampasa municipality took inspiration from Canada’s annual National Sweater Day, a curious holiday that is apparently celebrated on February 9, and while it is a bit odd and perhaps a touch wasteful, the project does demonstrate that extraordinary things can be accomplished by people who strive together to reach a common goal.

And it is a worthy goal at that: energy conservation is a simple, low-tech method to reduce the need for more fossil fuel extraction while also diverting carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

:: Fibre to Fashion

The post Istanbul Municipality Knits Enormous Sweater for Energy Conservation appeared first on Green Prophet.