Spaniard is world's oldest man

[PAULSTANL3Y]

Spaniard is world's oldest man
AAP July 27, 2013, 11:33 am

A 112-year-old Spaniard who settled in New York state more than 80 years ago has become the oldest man in the world, the website of Guinness World Records reports.

Salustiano Sanchez Blazquez accordingly succeeds Japan's Jiroemon Kimura, who died at age 116 in June.

After Kimura's death, Guinness reviewed Census reports, immigration documents and marriage certificates that in the end led to Sanchez.

Born ON June 8, 1901, in the village of El Tejado de Bejar, Sanchez has always had a special passion for the dulzaina, a wind instrument similar to a clarinet that he has played since a child and with which he once earned a little money at weddings and parties, Guinness said on Friday.

The humility that characterises him, according to his family, leads him to say that he doesn't feel he's done anything special by becoming the world's oldest man.

Sanchez says that the secret of his longevity is eating one plantain a day and taking his daily dose of Anacin analgesic to ease the pain he feels, according to a Guinness communique.

His personal adventures began at age 17, when he went to Cuba with his older brother and a small group of friends to work in the sugarcane fields. Two years later he went to the United States to work in a Kentucky coal mine.

He finally settled in Western New York, where in 1934 he married the love of his life, Pearl.

From that marriage the Spaniard had three children, seven grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

Japan's Misao Okawa, 115, is considered the oldest woman in the world.