A Japanese man aged 104 and his 103-year-old wife plan to claim the title of world’s oldest married couple after hearing it had been awarded to two Americans.
Yoichi and Kazono Gomi, married 72 years, appeared to have difficulty recalling their ages during a televised news conference in their home town of Yokohama this week.
But family members said their combined age of 207 should entitle them to the record.
Philadelphia residents Herbert and Magda Brown, registered by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest couple, are 105 and 100 respectively, giving them an aggregate age of 205.
“You have to have a lot of hope,” said Yoichi, a former civil servant, when asked the secret of living a long life.
“You have to want to be alive,” he said.
“What we enjoy most is spending time together,” he added.
His wife, who once worked as a nurse, appeared to shake her head as he spoke.
“You get bored just living such a long time. I don’t enjoy anything any more,” she said.
The couple have three children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.