World’s Longest Female Legs Belong To High School Basketball Coach

The world’s longest female legs belong to a high school basketball coach in Falls Church, Virginia.

The coach, Svetlana Pankratova, is also a former Russian women’s basketball player — a fitting career choice for a woman with more than four feet of legs.

The news that she has the world’s longest female legs probably isn’t surprising to Pankratova, who was always the tallest one in class when she was growing up.

Her height wasn’t easy to cope with, the assistant basketball coach says. She explained, “It wasn’t easy because kids do tease you. They tease whenever something is – I wouldn’t say not normal – but when something is different. So I would get teased a lot for being tall.”

It was also difficult for Pankratova to find pants that would fit. But it wasn’t until 2012 that she finally realized she may have the world’s longest legs. Her first realization happened in high school, though she admits, “I just never paid attention to my legs.”

A friend first brought up the possibility that she could have the world’s longest female legs. From there, it took six years of documentation before the suspicion was confirmed.

Svetlana Pankratova is already tall, standing at 6 feet 5 inches. But her legs take up more than two-thirds of her frame. The appendages measure in at 4 feet 4 inches. After six years of measurements and comparisons, Pankratova was notified she had the record for the world’s longest female legs.

The notification sparked a media tour that took her around the United States as well as to London. She helped promote the 2009 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records — the first edition in which she made an appearance. But the media attention didn’t deter her from her love of basketball. She started working with the George Mason High School girls varsity team in the middle of the 2010-2011 season.

Pankratova stated of her job, “I’m grateful for the opportunity for me to work with them. 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.”

And it’s likely the girls on the team are also glad to have her. Not only does she have history in the sport, having played in Russia and at Virginia Commonwealth University, she also has one quirk. Svetlana Pankratova has the world’s longest female legs.