Young basketball player Olivier Rioux is so tall that he is breaking records simply by continuing his education.
The 18-year-old Montreal native recently graduated high school and has committed to Florida. The school lists his height as a mind-blowing 7 feet 9 inches. That would make him the tallest college basketball player in history.
Rioux’s 7-9 size is the result of a small growth spurt. When Ballislife.com filmed him in November 2023, he was 7 feet 6 inches tall.
A gain of three inches in seven months is huge, especially for a man who was already in the Guinness Book of World Records just two years ago. for being the tallest teenager in the world. He was 16 years old at the time and was already 7 feet 5 inches tall. She told the Guinness Book of World Records website that her height is probably the result of having two very tall parents (although they don’t break records).
we are not yet 100% I’m sure why I’m so tall: after research, the doctors could only explain it with the genetics that my family has. My dad is 6’8, my mom is 6’2 and my older brother is 6’9. So we are a quite tall family!
Unsurprisingly, Rioux has been tall practically since he could stand. According to his Florida profile, he was 6-foot-1 when he was just eight years old and was 6-foot-11 when he was in sixth grade, approximately four years later. He had surpassed the six-foot mark at the beginning of seventh grade.
If you have a hard time imagining what someone so tall looks like next to someone of average height, here you go.
We took this photo together two years ago, at that time, Olivier Rioux was 7 feet 6 inches tall. He now he’s 7-9. The new freshman from Florida will be the tallest player in college basketball history. pic.twitter.com/gZSWrMa9Yb
– chuck swirsky (@ctsbulls) June 20, 2024
And this is what Rioux looked like playing basketball when he was 6-11 and 12 years old.
According to GatorsWire, Rioux is considered a “developmental project,” so not much is expected of him as a freshman. Then again, no one expected a 16-year-old between the ages of 7 and 5 to grow four inches in two years, so anything is possible.