MONGUI, Colombia Residents of this small Andean town on Sunday unveiled what they claim is the world's largest soccer ball, measuring 1.9 meters tall (6 feet tall) with a circumference of nearly 6 meters (20 feet).
Residents hope the blue, red and yellow soccer ball, which took 37 hours to stitch by hand and cost US$1,300 , will be recognized as a Guinness World Record.
Mongui, 170 kilometers (105 miles) northeast of Bogota, is known for manufacturing the country's highest quality soccer balls. It exports more than 30,000 each month to neighbouring countries and the United States, and 100,000 each month in the run-up to the FIFA World Cup every four years.
"We want the entire world to know that in Mongui we make the best soccer balls in the world," said the town's mayor, Segundo Antoloio Pedraza.
About half of the town's 6,000 residents, most of whom are peasant farmers, earn an income providing leather or hand-stitching the balls.
The town first began producing soccer balls 60 years ago.
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