Longest dodgeball game lasts 43 hours

HALFMOON, N.Y., March 26 (UPI) -- An upstate New York club may have set a world record for the longest game of dodgeball -- an astonishing 43 hours consecutively.

Officials from the Guinness Book of World Records were reviewing logs and tapes of the affair, which took place in an outdoor sports complex in Halfmoon, N.Y., north of Albany. But participants -- shoulders and feet swollen, knuckles cracked, bodies bruised from all the thumps and thwacks -- celebrated the feat just the same.

The man behind the dodgeball marathon was Rob Immel, a 31-year-old gym teacher from Ballston Spa, N.Y. He founded Halfmoon's Hometown Dodgeball league in 2005 and has been a regular player in the National Dodgeball League World Championships.

The Halfmoon club had previously held the world record for longest game at 31 hours, playing against Albany Dodgeball. That was until a group of college students from Castleton State College in Vermont bested their time by 10 full hours, playing 41 hours, 3 minutes, 17 seconds.

In response, Immel and a group totaling 18 players total set out to reclaim their record -- by playing 43 hours in a row.

For every hour played a player earned a 5-minute break. They banked the breaks and took 45-minute stoppages until they reached their goal Sunday, Immel told The New York Times.

"It's an incredible sport and I want as many people to know about it as possible," Immel said. "I obviously love it if I'm motivated to go out and put myself through this for 43 hours."