Adam is right on cue to earn world record!
Twelve-year-old Adam Wynne from Tullamore earned his place in the official Guinness World Records recently after potting an amazing 99 snooker balls in just 58 seconds!
The young prodigy, who is no stranger to the international spotlight since he became an internet sensation aged three, and at six years of age appeared on US talent TV show Little Big Shots America, achieved his latest historic feat during a televised test in Italy in March.
He and his family father Sean, mother Elaine, sisters Kelly and Emma, were all invited by Guinness World Records to come to Milan for a world record attempt on the TV show 'Lo Show Dei Record'. However, the family had to stay quiet about the experience until the show aired on Italian TV last Sunday.
Adam, a student in Coolanarney NS, was set the challenge of potting 60 snooker balls in 60 seconds. The rules stipulated that 25 balls are lined up near the cushion of four separate tables and the competitor must attempt to pot each ball in turn into the middle pocket.
“I'm speechless about it. I can't believe I potted 99 balls,” Adam told the Morning Ireland programme on RTÉ earlier this week. “When I was practising I got 80 balls in and then when I got on the show I just somehow turned it on and potted all the balls,” he explained modestly to presenter Mary Wilson.
Given three chances to break the record, Adam hit the jackpot on the first attempt in lightning quick speed, so much so, the presenter of the TV show likened him to a machine gun such was his swiftness.
The talented youngster was so fast on the table that with two seconds left on the one-minute countdown he had run out of balls to pot. Of the 100 available, he only missed one.
His proud father Sean recalled that Adam, then aged just 20 months, used to stand on a bucket to reach the table and he would line up balls along the table for him to pot in the middle pocket.
“Little did he I ever know that would later turn into a world record,” Sean said of his son, who aged just three, and barely reaching the table, became an internet sensation when a video of his potting skills went viral all over the world after it was posted online by a relative.
“I'd love to stay with this (pool) until I'm very old,” Adam, who is the current All Ireland U12 Pool Champion, said on radio when asked what the future holds for him, adding that his father who helps to run the Cue Academy in Tullamore where he trains is his hero.
Congratulating Adam on his record breaking achievement, Offaly Pool Association said: “We’re raising Guinness World Record holders now. Just saying....”