Te Waha Nui report by Anna Ferrick
Kiwi kids piled into Auckland waterfront’s Cloud to break the Guinness World Record for the biggest cereal breakfast ever yesterday.

Year eight girls from Saint Kentigern College take part in the Weet-Bix breakfast challenge yesterday. Photo: Anna Ferrick

The previous world record sat at 320 participants and was more than doubled by yesterday’s attempt by 690 students.

The event, organised by Weet-Bix, was to help mark the Olympics.

Weet-Bix PR assistant Juno Morgan said documentation would now be sent to London to be authenticated by the Guinness World Record team.

“Weet-Bix is the official breakfast of the New Zealand team so we decided to celebrate with the breakfast challenge.”

With more than 900 students registered the night before the event, organisers were confident.

“We had to make sure they were all seated and eating the breakfast for them to be counted so a few had to be taken off the final list,” said Morgan.

Schools throughout Auckland were invited to participate at The Cloud yesterday.

“This is ultimately an event to support young athletes and our New Zealand Olympic team,” said Morgan.

“Students were able to watch Valerie Adams and other Kiwi athletes in action during the morning via the big screens.”

The students were provided with a Weet-Bix breakfast and entertained throughout the morning by athletes Danyon Loader, Rob Waddell, Danyon Loader, Moss Burmester and Maddie Dillon.

Twenty PR students from AUT University were on hand to help run the event.

“Our toughest challenge was organising the schools and participants to stay in The Cloud for an hour as that is the length of time everyone needed to be there to break the record,” said Morgan.

Saint Kentigern College teacher Nicole Daniels brought her year eight class along to take part in the world record attempt.

“They are all really excited about it, about half of them will go on to take part in the triathlon later in the year too,” she said.

The Weet-Bix triathlon began in 1993 and has seen 220,000 kids participate over the years. Morgan said the event had reached an iconic status.

“Some of these kids have gone on to become some of New Zealand’s leading athletes, it’s the largest kids sporting event in the world, it’s a rite of passage for Kiwi kids.”