Longest Female Legs World Record-Holder Svetlana Pankratova Is A High School Basketball Coach

Woman With The World's Longest Legs Is A High School Basketball Coach
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The woman with the world's longest legs is a high school basketball coach in Virginia.

According to a Falls Church News-Press report from earlier this month, Svetlana Pankratova -- who in 2003 clinched the Guinness World Record title for the longest female legs -- is an assistant coach for the girls' basketball team at George Mason High School in Falls Church.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity for me to work with them,” Pankratova, who stands at 6 feet 5 inches, told the newspaper about her gig. “Because I stopped playing basketball…so it was great to get back to basketball and I really do enjoy it and it brings all the nice memories back and I just enjoy giving them what I know to help them any way I can.”

Pankratova, whose super-lengthy pins are almost 4 feet 4 inches long, was once a star basketball player herself -- first in her native Russia and then with Virginia Commonwealth University.

Now, Pankratova is bringing her skills to the high school basketball arena.

Much like their towering coach, the George Mason girls' basketball team has been described as a "powerhouse" to be reckoned with.

According to the Washington Post, the team has won "three of the last four state championships in Virginia A-Division 2." The team made it to the semi-finals again this year but was defeated in a final four game last week.

No one’s going to feel sorry for us,” head coach LaBryan Thomas told the Washington Post after the loss. “Because we’ve been here so many times. But this one hurts.”

Pankratova is not the only statuesque world-record holder who has a penchant for shooting hoops.

When she was younger, Yao Defen -- the world's tallest woman until her death last year -- learned to play basketball as a youth, the Associated Press reports.

Sultan Kosen, currently the world's tallest man, was once recruited to play for a professional basketball team in his native Turkey, according to Argentine sports magazine El Gráfico. Unfortunately, Kosen, who has acromegaly, eventually became incapable of walking unaided, and his professional hoop dreams were left unfulfilled.

Svetlana Pankratova
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Svetlana Pankratova in Times Square to receive Guinness world record for the world's longest legs (52 inches). (Photo by Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
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He Pingping, the world's smallest man at 74.61 cm tall, poses with Svetlana Pankratova, who is the woman with the longest legs in the world at 132 cm, as they launch the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Book of Records at Trafalgar Square on September 16, 2008 in London, England. (Photo by Fred Duval/FilmMagic) (credit:Getty Images)
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Svetlana Pankratova in Times Square to receive Guinness World Record for the world's longest legs. Stuart Claxton (official Guinness judge) checks the measurements, while a pedestrian at left gets closer look. (Photo by Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
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Svetlana Pankratova and He Pingping, the world's smallest man at 74.61 cm tall, poses with Svetlana Pankratova, who is the woman with the longest legs in the world at 132 cm, as they launch the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Book of Records at Trafalgar Square on September 16, 2008 in London, England. (Photo by Fred Duval/FilmMagic) (credit:Getty Images)
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A man measures Svetlana Pankratova's legs, the longest legs belonging to a woman at 132 cm, as she and He Pingping (not pictured), the world's smallest man at 74.61 cm tall, launch the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Book of Records at Trafalgar Square on September 16, 2008 in London, England. (Photo by Fred Duval/FilmMagic) (credit:Getty Images)
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He Pingping, the world's smallest man at 74.61 cm tall, poses with Svetlana Pankratova, who is the woman with the longest legs in the world at 132 cm, as they launch the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Book of Records at Trafalgar Square on September 16, 2008 in London, England. (Photo by Fred Duval/FilmMagic) (credit:Getty Images)
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