Sport's most pointless records

Sir Bradley Wiggins celebrates after breaking the UCI One Hour Record at Lee Valley VeloPark. Photo / Getty Images

It's enough to make you feel dizzy just reading about it. English cycling star Sir Bradley Wiggins has just broken the "iconic" one hour record, travelling 54.526km at a London Track. For the statistically minded, that's 218 laps. Wiggins had set a target of 221 laps but chin up lad - it's still a terrific effort.

There's a host of crazy sports records out there, and we take a look at a few.

Indoor rowing

Our very own Rob Waddell quietly broke a record when he cracked the 15 minute mark for rowing 5km on a stationary machine in 2009. While news leaked out, New Zealand rowing refused to confirm or deny in the immediate aftermath saying training results were top secret. The amazing Waddell set other indoor records and I seem to remember him saying they were so punishing he could feel sick for days. As much as we revere the man, that is a heck of a lot of effort to go nowhere.

Swiss ball

For all you gym bunnies...an American named Ashrita Furman stood on a Swiss ball for more than five hours at a cafe in New York in 2010. We presume the ball was was pumped up. Who even thinks up these ideas, let alone does them?

Football

Just this month, 36 footballers played nonstop for 102 hours in Southampton. Someone bothered to keep the score, which was 910 - 725. Had the game been deadlocked at say 803-all, we presume there would have been a penalty shoot out.

Squash

Auckland father and son Brett and James Meyer recently played for just over 36 hours to beat the previous record by three hours. They clearly enjoy this sort of thing, having set a record of nearly 26 hours in 2008. Some people will do anything to get out of doing the lawns.

Hurdling with fins

More Kiwi glory and another vote for Mt Smart Stadium as an essential part of the Auckland sports landscape. In 2009, Auckland athlete Veronica Torr smashed the world record for doing the 100m hurdles while wearing flippers. This can still be viewed on YouTube, and in all seriousness, is quite impressive. Sadly, the sport appears to have gone into a slump since then.

Treadmill

More riveting news for gym bunnies. American Christopher Bergland clocked 247km and some spare change during 24 hours on a treadmill. No doubt he got abused for hogging the machine during peak hours which makes the record all the more impressive.