MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A band of leg-sore Australian friends are claiming a new world record for the longest nonstop game of beach touch rugby, accumulating around 1,500 points during a grueling 34 hours of play, one of the players said Friday.
Neither side knows who won. Organizers of the Tama Touch Group, which played the game on Wednesday and Thursday as a charity event at Sydney's iconic Bondi Beach, decided against providing a running score for fear of overexciting the fatigued players’ competitive instincts, competitor Harry Preston said.
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A player runs the ball up during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
A player falls during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
A player runs the ball up during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
A player runs the ball up during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
A player runs the ball up during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
“It’s not about who beats who. It’s about collectively breaking the record and doing it for a good cause,” Preston said. “It does get a bit competitive, but it’s all about the mateship and the camaraderie."
Guinness Word Records has yet to confirm the group has broken the record set by the Sandbaggers Beach Touch Rugby Team in Britain in August 2022. But Guinness confirmed in a statement Thursday that its records team was assessing the bid.
The name “Tama” comes from the smaller Tamarama Beach, south of Bondi, where they formed their social group to play in 2001. Better known as Tama Touch, the group's 22 men began their six-a-side game at 6 a.m. Wednesday and declared themselves world record holders Thursday afternoon.
The Sandbaggers record set on the coast of southern England was 34 hours and 6 seconds. Their match raised donations for motor neurone disease charities. Tama Touch claimed a numerically significant record of 34 hours, 9 minutes and 25 seconds. The numerals represent the date of the two-day match, Sept. 3 and 4, 2025.
Video of the entire game will submitted to Guinness, as well a log of every point scored and substitution made. Witness statements also will be included as evidence of a record.
“Some wanted to go on,” Preston said. “Our theory is that we didn’t want to break it by a huge margin because we want other people to break it and we want other people to raise money and awareness for causes and that’s ultimately what it’s all about.”
Tama Touch's match raised more than 167,000 Australian dollars ($109,000) for Beyond Blue, an Australian mental health organization providing free support to help manage anxiety, depression and suicide prevention.
Player Andrew Lord said regular social matches with Tama Touch on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays helped his own mental health.
“I’ve had my own experiences with mental health and this group helped me through. Now we want to help others find that same support,” Lord said in a statement.
Preston said the whole group of 22 stayed to the end despite players suffering a dislocated toe, a suspected broken toe and a broken thumb. The injuries happened late in the game.
There was no limit to how many substitutions could be made, but there always had to be 12 players in the game and 10 on the bench. One player said a smart watch told him he had run 70 kilometers (43 miles) during the match.
“There’s a lot of pressure on the ankles and the Achilles (tendons) and the calves because sand is a little bit more trying than hard surfaces,” Preston said.
The early spring temperature fell to 8 degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight. The daytime temperatures rose to mild maximums of 13 Celsius (55 Fahrenheit) Wednesday and 16 Celsius (61 Fahrenheit) Thursday.
In touch rugby, a player scores a point by placing the ball on or over what is called a try line. Preston said around 1,500 points were scored, but there was a more precise tally kept. Whether the Breakers in the blue shirts or the Sand Stormers in red shirts won the game will be announced at a dinner next week.
A player runs the ball up during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
A player falls during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
A player runs the ball up during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
A player runs the ball up during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
A player runs the ball up during a world record attempt for a game of beach touch rugby on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
TENERIFE, Spain (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization sought Saturday to reassure residents of the Spanish island where passengers of a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship are expected to be evacuated, issuing them a direct message that the virus was “not another COVID.”
The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, with more than 140 passengers and crew on board, is headed to Spain's Canary Islands, off the coast of West Africa, and is expected to arrive at the island of Tenerife early Sunday.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spain’s Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, were due on the island Saturday to coordinate the disembarkation of passengers and some crew.
“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” Tedros said in a message to the people of Tenerife.
“But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now,” Tedros added.
The WHO, Spanish authorities and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said nobody on the Hondius is currently showing symptoms of the virus.
Hantavirus can cause life-threatening illness. It usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus.
Some on Tenerife say they are worried. On board the cruise ship, some Spanish passengers have voiced concern about being stigmatized.
“I tell you, I don’t like this very much,” said 69-year-old resident Simon Vidal. “Anyone can say what they want. Why did they have to bring a boat from another country here? Why not anywhere else, why bring it to the Canary Islands?”
Others said they empathized with the boat's passengers, but were still concerned.
“The truth is that it is very worrying,” said 27-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Samantha Aguero. She added: “We feel a bit unsafe, we don’t feel as there are 100% security measures in place to welcome it. This is a virus after all and we have lived this during the pandemic. But we also need to have empathy.”
Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said passengers and some crew would disembark in Tenerife “under maximum safety conditions.”
The ship will not dock but will remain at anchor. Everyone disembarking will be checked for symptoms and won't be taken off the ship until a flight is already in Tenerife waiting to fly them off the island, Garcia said during a news conference in Madrid. There are currently people of more than 20 different nationalities on board.
Both the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens. Americans are to be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska.
All Spanish passengers will be transferred to a medical facility and quarantined, Garcia said. Oceanwide has listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.
Those disembarking will leave behind their luggage, Garcia said, and will be allowed to take only a small bag with essential items, a cellphone, charger and documentation.
Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to the Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, the minister added.
According to a letter sent by the Dutch foreign and health ministers to parliament late Friday, Spain has activated the EU civil protection mechanism for a medical evacuation plane equipped for infections diseases to be on standby in case anyone on the ship becomes ill. That person would then be transported by air to the European mainland.
The Dutch government will work with Spanish authorities and the ship company to arrange repatriation of Dutch passengers and crew as soon as possible after arrival in Tenerife, subject to medical conditions and advice from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the letter said. Those without symptoms will go into home quarantine for six weeks and be monitored by local health services.
As the ship is Dutch-flagged, the Netherlands may also temporarily accommodate people of other nationalities and monitor them in quarantine, it said.
Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who disembarked before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.
On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator have said.
It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.
Dutch public health authorities have been monitoring people who were on a flight that was briefly boarded by a Dutch ship passenger who later died and was confirmed to have hantavirus. Three people who were on the flight and had symptoms have all tested negative for hantavirus, Dutch National Institute for Public Health spokesperson Harald Wychgel told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Becatoros reported from Sparta, Greece. Associated Press reporters Angela Charlton in Paris and Helena Alves in Tenerife contributed to this report.
A Spanish Civil Guard officer inspects the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Media crew members stand in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Workers set up temporary shelters in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Passengers on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, scan the horizon with binoculars during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
Passengers on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, watch epidemiologists board the boat in Praia, during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
A passenger checks his camera inside his cabin on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
Crew members of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, wait their turns for a first interview with epidemiologists, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
A passenger on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, takes a photo of the ship's weighing anchor in Praia, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
