Belgium's Mario Vangeel is the proud winner of this year's European Pumpkin Championship after bringing his 2,539-pound gourd all the way to Germany to enter this year's competition.
The award-winning pumpkin "weighs as much as a 2007 Honda Civic." This seems like a very specific comparison, but if you happen to drive a 2007 Honda Civic, I'm sure you can appreciate the massive weight of the great pumpkin.
Vangeel is familiar with the world of giant pumpkins, after winning the national competition in Belgium in 2019 and coming in as second place in the European Championship back in 2021.
Still, he didn't think this years pumpkin was big enough to take home the prize, telling EuroNews,
I was hoping yes, but I didn't think I was going to win.
Well, he was wrong.
The champion pumpkin grower comes from the town of Kasterlee, Belgium where residents are affectionately known as "pumpkin-eaters," and growing giant pumpkins is a bit of a town hobby, with an active club of more than 50 members.
Mario Vangeel's wife, Bieke, explained,
They found papers from the 1600s saying that because they had poor land, they couldn't grow a lot of food. But pumpkins did very well here. And that's where it started.
Some of the pumpkins that aren't of record-breaking quality will be used in Kasterlee's Pumpkin Regatta, which looks every bit as cool as it sounds:
The gourds are hollowed out and used as boats for Kasterlee's Pumpkin Regatta — a race that now attracts 5,000 visitors to the town to watch members of the Kasterlee Kayaking Club — and international competitors too — race down a river in hollowed-out pumpkins.
And of course, the town is also known for growing pumpkins for food as well, with Mario commenting that his pumpkin-loving family eats their fair share of pumpkin soup in the Fall.
Mario Vangeel says that this victory is just one step in his life dream, with his sights already set on the next step of pumpkin-growing fame,
I want to be world champion once - it's a dream to break the record.
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