Mysuru: Thousands of people attended the Guinness Record attempt mass yoga performance on the sprawling campus of Mysore Race Course on June 21 but all of them could not be counted to arrive at a definite number, said Mysuru Deputy Commissioner  (DC) D. Randeep.

“There were more than 54,101 people in Mysuru while yoga performance at Ahmedabad recorded 54,522 participants,” he said.

He was speaking at a thanksgiving programme organised for the media personnel who gave excellent coverage and supported the District Administration and yoga enthusiasts.

“Thousands of Yoga trainers and demonstrators had come to the venue on June 21 as early as 4.30 am to manage the crowd and their numbers could not be added as they were not given the barcode,” the DC said.

“Based on the ticket numbers, the Guinness Record for Yoga performance at a single venue was given to Ahmedabad. Though we had more participants, they had not obtained tickets and over 5,000 people could not enter the venue for various reasons,” Randeep said.

“Also, the Gate 7 of the Race Course was reserved for VIPs. Here too, thousands of participants entered the venue and their count could not be taken. In a day or two, we will collate all the data including numbers and resend to the Guinness authorities. We will collect statistics, photographs of the venue, visuals shot by the drone and newspaper reports and send it to them,” he said.

The District Administration is now hoping that Mysuru city will set a new world record for the longest yoga chain, created a couple of days before the International Day of Yoga programme.

More than 9,000 school and college students created the yoga chain in front of the Mysore Palace on June 19 with the hope of breaking the world record held by an institution at Perumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

“We have submitted all the documents, including video proof and photographs, to the Guinness authorities. We hope the city sets a new world record in that category,” the DC said.

Thanking the media, networking federations, NGOs, officials and Mysureans for their overwhelming support, the DC said that the event would not have reached such a stage without the support of the people and the media.

“In my view, a record has been set as far as Mysuru is concerned. The unprecedented support from the public was moving and was itself a record of sorts,” he said.

Yoga champ Kushi, Assistant Director of the Department of Information and Publicity Raju and others were present.