{"id":4577,"date":"2010-03-15T17:31:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T17:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2010\/03\/15\/friends-in-arms-the-hug-thats-gone-international\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T12:33:59","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T12:33:59","slug":"friends-in-arms-the-hug-thats-gone-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2010\/03\/15\/friends-in-arms-the-hug-thats-gone-international\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Friends in Arms\u2019: The Hug that\u2019s gone International"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Manchester students break world record for longest hug…and the world loves it!<\/h3>\n
\"\"WHEN two Manchester students came up with a novel way of raising money for a cancer charity, little did they know their heroics would become international news.<\/strong> <\/div>\n

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Friends Faisal Mohyud-Din and Mohammed Azeem succeeded in their mission to smash the Guinness World Record for the world’s longest ever hug to celebrate the opening of a new cancer centre by the Christie Hospital.<\/div>\n

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The duo, both from Salford University, hugged for an astonishing 24 hours and 17 minutes in Oldham – beating the previous holders’ record by over 16 minutes.<\/div>\n

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And it\u2019s a world record that truly deserved world recognition.<\/div>\n

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Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton may be known as the most hated man in Hollywood, but even he admitted he was touched by the students\u2019 heroic act.<\/div>\n

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Writing on his infamous blog, Hilton described Faisal and Mohammed\u2019s record breaking attempt as \u201camazing.\u201d<\/div>\n

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The duo also got a mention in the Washington Post and across newspapers in South Africa!<\/div>\n

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As a promising 100m sprinter with aspirations to compete in the 2012 Olympics, record-holder Faisal is more used to speeding down a track than feats of endurance. His current personal best is 10.46 seconds – a time which he expects to cut dramatically in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics.<\/div>\n

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The epic hug-a-thon was inspired by the embrace logo of The Christie, Europe’s leading cancer centre. The record marks the opening of its new radiotherapy centre in Oldham – the first of its kind in the country.<\/div>\n

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Faisal said: “This was certainly a marathon rather than a sprint. I needed all my reserves of stamina to get through it, but I’m over the moon to have broken the record – hopefully the first of many!”<\/div>\n

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Alicia Custis, head of communications at The Christie, added: “Massive congratulations to Faisal and Azeem for the world record. They’ve done fantastically well and fought against sleep deprivation and muscle fatigue. I know it was incredibly hard work and I’m hugely grateful to them for doing this for the Christie. This is a hug for all our cancer patients.”<\/div>\n

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Vice-Chancellor Professor Martin Hall said: “Congratulations to Faisal and Mohammed for showing tremendous commitment and effort in aid of this good cause.”<\/div>\n

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\u00a0<\/div>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manchester students break world record for longest hug…and the world loves it! WHEN two Manchester students came up with a novel way of raising money for a cancer charity, little did they know their heroics would become international news. Friends Faisal Mohyud-Din and Mohammed Azeem succeeded in their mission to smash the Guinness World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}