Puerto Rico breaks world record as baseball fans go blond

Puerto Ricans have broken the Guinness World Record for the most hair dyed, with 192 men going blond to support the US territory’s bid to win the World Baseball Classic.

The baseball team’s players first dyed their hair blond ahead of the 2017 World Baseball Classic as a joke, unexpectedly unleashing a dyeing craze in Puerto Rico that left pharmacies and beauty supply stores bereft of hair dye.

The tournament is usually held every four years but the pandemic delayed it by two years, so after six years many Puerto Ricans were eager to see if the trend would continue.

The players obliged and repeated the tradition this year, and people on the island of overwhelmingly dark hair once again responded via platinum blond, dirty blond and even burnt orange locks and beards to show their support.

“The more blond hair, the more united we’ll be as a people,” photographer Miguel Rodriguez Camilo said while waiting for his dark hair to change colour.

He was one of more than 200 men who showed up for the mass bleaching event on Friday. Some were disqualified for various reasons, including that they did not take the obligatory “before” picture.

Guinness World Record adjudicator Natalia Ramirez noted that a handful were disqualified because they already had white or geying hair.

“If you can’t really see a change, it doesn’t count,” she said.

Participants sat in an outdoor area for up to 45 minutes wearing plastic shower caps as colourists came by.

“I wasn’t going to do it but my colleagues pressured me into it,” said William Davidowski, a 51-year-old with naturally dark brown hair who works at the insurance company that helped organise the event.

The World Baseball Classic has just started but Mr Davidowski was not sure how long he will