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Should Olivier join the NBA, which is his dream, he would eclipse Manute Bol and Gheorghe Muresan, who were both 7ft 7in (2.31m), as the tallest to have ever plied in the league. (Screengrabs: X/Florida Gators Men’s Basketball)
The tallest teenager in the world, the Canadian beanpole Olivier Rioux, is now the tallest to perform a slam dunk in the US college league basketball circuit. The Florida Gators player, standing at seven feet and nine inches was declared the tallest teenager by Guinness World Records in 2021 when he was then 7ft 5in (2.26m). When he dunked during his team’s 102-61 victory over Saint Francis, he stitched another record to his name too.
Only 19, he is used to puzzled stares. “You get asked questions every day,” Rioux, who likes to draw in his spare time, once said. “You don’t have a single three seconds to yourself when you’re outside, which I was fine with because my brother and my dad are tall. And, as a family, we used to go out. That’s just how it was, and you can’t change that because people are curious.”
He welcomes the stares, the questions and all the requests. “It does help to be Canadian,” he quipped. “You just get used to it. Talking to people is nice because they are curious, and you can’t change that.
THE TALLEST PLAYER TO EVER SCORE A FG IN COLLEGE BASKETBALL 🔥
Florida’s 7’9″ Olivier Rioux makes history with his first-ever FG 👏 pic.twitter.com/quPo6vaYlN
— ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) December 18, 2025
He grew up in Terrebonne, Quebec, and found at an early that age he was different. He was taller than most of his teachers in elementary school, crossed the 6-foot mark by age 8 and topped 7 feet the summer before seventh grade.
His mom is 6, 2, dad is 6, 8 and his older brother is 6, 9. “At my meemaw’s house, we had the wall (where) me and my brother used to measure ourselves. And then one day, poof, my brother was gone,” Rioux said, recollecting the day he “officially” outgrew his entire family.
Understandably, he has a number of custom-made items to make life more comfortable, most notably his bed. On campus, though, he barely fits diagonally across a queen-sized mattress. He has to duck to get through near every doorway and often hits his head. He wears a size 20 shoe, gets most of his wardrobe from team gear and won’t dare ride a scooter because “I don’t trust myself.” Squeezing into a classroom desk is more comical than a point guard trying to box him out.
He started playing basketball at age five and ended up at IMG Academy in Sarasota, about three hours south of Gainesville, for high school. He had offers from UC Irvine and Morehead State but ended up at Florida as a preferred walk-on.
Should he join the NBA, which is his dream, he would eclipse Manute Bol and Gheorghe Muresan, who were both 7ft 7in (2.31m), as the tallest to have ever plied in the league. Among current players, 21-year-old French star Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs is 7ft 4 in (2.24 m), followed by 23-year-old Zach Edey of the Memphis Grizzlies at 7ft 3 in (2.21 m).
English (US) ·