Guinness awards record to French man who made Eiffel Tower from matchsticks.

Richard Plaud, a Frenchman who has dreamed of building the world’s tallest matchstick sculpture, made headlines this week when Guinness World Records rejected his huge model of the Eiffel Tower, saying Plaud broke the rules.

“It hurt me,” Plaud told TF1 French TV news. News outlets reported on his disappointment that his work was rejected. But after an official review, “it seems that we have been heavy-handed in the application of our rules in this case,” Guinness World Records Director of Central Records Services Mark McKinley said in an email to NPR as Guinness announced the reversal. The 1:45 scale model stands 7.19 meters (a little taller than 23.5 feet). It took Plaud years — and more than 700,000 matchsticks — to build the finely detailed structure. Finally, last month, he unveiled the finished result to thousands of people and his followers on Instagram.

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