University of Florida basketball player Olivier Rioux is quite literally reaching new heights in the 2026 NCAA March Madness tournament.
Rioux, 20, stands tall at 7-foot-9, making him the tallest athlete to ever compete in the tournament, according to The Athletic. Rioux helped the Florida Gators beat the Prairie View A&M Panthers 114-55 during the Friday, March 20, match-up of the competition.
Rioux, who plays center for the Gators, is in his second year at the University of Florida and entered Friday’s game in the final minutes of competition, adding an exclamation mark to the team’s blowout win by scoring a put-back dunk before the final buzzer.
“It’s pretty unbelievable,” Gators forward Alex Condon told reporters after the game. “He’s a very tall bloke. He comes out there, and everyone’s chanting to get him the ball. He does a great job managing that pressure and taking the right shots.”
Rioux, a member of the Gators’ 2025 national championship team, previously set the Guinness World Record for the tallest male teenager when he was 16.
“We’re still not 100 percent sure why I’m so tall. After investigation, doctors could only explain it with the genetics that my family has,” the Canada native told Guinness at the time. “My father is 6’8, my mom is 6’2 and my older brother is 6’9. So. we’re a pretty tall family! It feels great being the height I am. I love it.”
He continued, “I was always taller than the rest of my friends at school or teammates. This is what nature planned for me. I learned to be peaceful and happy about it.”
Rioux leveraged his height into a collegiate basketball career.
Olivier Rioux plays in the Florida vs. Prairie View A&M Panthers game on Friday, March 20. Mike Carlson/Getty Images
“I have been playing basketball since I was 5 years old. The opposing team would often question my age, because even as a 5-year-old I was much taller than the other kids,” he recalled at the time. “Although no one questions my age anymore, sometimes before the game the opponents are looking in my direction with question-mark eyes. Often they just ask a question at the free throw line like, ‘How tall are you?’”
The athlete added of his competitors, “They are impressed to begin with but that does not make them less physical in the game. They even challenge me more because of my size.”
Rioux and the Gators will next play the Iowa Hawkeyes Sunday, March 22, in the next round of the NCAA tournament.
