New World Record Set at the Big Smoke Paris

On Saturday, June 18th 2016, around 40 cigar fans from Paris, but also from the USA, Turkey and Switzerland gathered at the Big Smoke Paris, the very first French Cigar Smoking World Championship (CSWC) qualification tournament, organized by Guillaume Tesson.

At the Cercle Foch restaurant, near the Arc de Triomphe, fourteen competitors fought for the first place under the oversight of the founder of this international competition, Marko Bilic, owner of the Club Mareva in Split. Darren Cioffi, who already won several times, gave a great performance. The American competitor beat his own record, with 2 hours 50 minutes and 9 seconds for a Macanudo Inspirado Mareva!

«This victory is very important for me, not only because this is a new world record. It’s now more than twenty years I come every Fall to Paris, to attend le Salon du Livre et des papiers anciens (an ancient books and postcards fair trade), were I buy some old tobacco bands, memorabilia and posters… So this is a great symbol», said Darren Cioffi.

«Usually it’s not our way to enjoy cigars. I didn’t know a competition like this could ever exist. But the atmosphere is electric and amazing », says Nicole Pinel, a woman competitor.

Among the guests: Stephan Brichau from Scandinavian Tobacco Group, Alexandr Gorokhovskiy and Carmen Guerrero from Havana Club, Maurice Audo from Cuervo y Sobrinos and Marta Bottari from Scabal.

Great prizes like a Cuervo y Sobrino watch from the 1882 series, a Scabal tailor-made shirt, Havana Club Seleccion de Maestros bottles of rums and French Parfum d’Empire bottles perfumes were offered to the three best competitors.

The results :
1) Darren Cioffi: 2:50:09
2) Dennis Hermann: 1:09:54
3) Emmanuelle Rusquart: 0:51:35