No guts, no glory: haggis hurler sets new record at world championships in Scotland

A new record at the World Haggis Hurling Championships was set on Sunday at the home of Robert Burns, as part of festivities to mark the birth of Scotland’s national poet.

The championships are held every year around the time of Burns’ birthday in his former home town of Alloway, 65km from Glasgow on the south west coast of Scotland.

Champion Gary McLay, 26, from nearby Kilmarnock, set a new event record by hurling the traditional Scottish pudding 59 metres.

“My previous record last year was 193 [feet] so I’ve beat it by a foot,” he said, less than five years after taking up the Scottish sport with his father.

“We came away down, my dad went first and got a good throw and then I went and I beat him and ended up the world champion,” McLay said of his rise to the top.

Other haggis hurling events take place in Scotland, including at the Milngavie Highland Games where Lorne Coltart reportedly set an overall world record of 66 metres in 2011.

Haggis is a Scottish dish made by stuffing the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep inside its stomach with onions and oatmeal.