Months after experiencing a scary fall throughout a WNBA Commissioner’s Cup sport, Rong Niu — higher often called the unicycle performer Red Panda — has a message for her supporters and followers: She’s coming again.
Niu suffered a critical wrist harm after she fell off her 7-foot unicycle whereas doing her patented act of tossing bowls onto her head whereas balancing on the one-wheeler at halftime of an Indiana Fever-Minnesota Lynx sport in July. The harm required a prolonged surgical process and sidelined her for the remainder of the WNBA season.
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On Sunday, her company stated Niu expects to return in the course of the 2025-26 males’s and ladies’s faculty basketball and NBA seasons. She already is training once more and making ready to get again onto the courtroom.
“We’re sending out this be aware to thank everybody for his or her heartfelt needs to Red Panda for a speedy restoration from her fall,” stated Pat Figley, Niu’s agent, in a memo. “It was a really critical harm and he or she did require surgical procedure. She appreciated all of the honest follow-up. It was wonderful and really touching. She actually appreciates the entire help. She is recovering effectively and is training. She is wanting ahead to performing this season.”
Earlier than the harm, Niu’s Red Panda act was a staple of halftimes at NBA, WNBA and faculty basketball video games all through the nation. Followers typically would forgo halftime journeys to the restroom or concession stands to look at Niu’s efficiency.
Figley stated Niu doesn’t have a selected return date in thoughts however that she is on observe to make her comeback within the months forward.
“She is therapeutic,” he stated.