“Do you play basketball?”
If you’re tall, you’ve been on the receiving end of that question a few too many times. While it’s true basketball players have the tallest average height (6’7″) of all athletes, we wanted to figure out if us tall, skinny guys were well suited to any other sports based on our size. We scoured the Internet for data and statistics on every sport we could possibly find.
Our criteria? The average height of the professional athletes in the sport had to be over 6’0″ in order to be considered tall. And the average BMI had to be under 25 to be considered slim. After compiling research on athletes in 19 different sports, we found 4 that were the best sports for tall skinny guys: volleyball, rowing, tennis and swimming.
Volleyball players enjoyed the tallest average height at 6’5″ with rowers (6’3″), tennis players (6’1″) and swimmers (6’1″) not too far behind. When it comes to weight the slimmest athletes were the tennis players (175 lbs) followed by swimmers (180 lbs), rowers (194 lbs) and volleyball players (197 lbs). Athletes from each of the four sports had a BMI that measured from 23-24.
The tallest athlete in volleyball is Ryan Doherty (7’1″) who plays on the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour. The tallest swimmer is Rolandas Gimbutis (6’11”) who swam in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympics. The tallest rower is Michael Clougher (6’10”) who competed in the 2017 World Rowing Championships. And for tennis we have Ivo Karlovic (6’10”), the tallest player on the ATP Circuit.
There are plenty of other examples of tall slim athletes in each of these sports. So if basketball just isn’t your thing, you might consider taking up volleyball, rowing, tennis or swimming.
Check out our complete data in this helpful infographic!
