Zhang Ziyu, the 2.23-meter World Cup sensation

Seeing her seated is striking. When she stands, all you can do is look up. Zhang Ziyu is 19 and stands 2.23 meters tall (seven feet and three inches). She is the tallest professional women’s basketball player in history and the main attraction at the World Cup in Berlin, where she is competing with China’s national team, but as she herself points out, she’s still almost a child. “Everyone thinks I’m tough because I’m very tall, but I’m still a young girl, sometimes quite childish,” Zhang says in a FIBA documentary. It shows in her youthful face, in the jokes with her teammates and in the laughter as she runs through the mixed zone. And in her hobby of crocheting handicrafts that she gives to friends, like a stuffed elephant she spent two weeks sewing with yarn. When she recalls how she became a star, she says she misses her childhood bed full of rag dolls.

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