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Javier Galeano / AP
Sultan Kosen, top, of Turkey, who according to the Guinness World Record Association is the world's tallest man, accompanied by members of the newly-created Cuba Amore Foundation, walks among students during a visit to the Cesareo Fernandez school in Havana on Monday.
Javier Galeano / AP
Sultan Kosen, left, of Turkey, who according to the Guinness World Record Association is the world's tallest man, jokes with a student during a visit to the Cesareo Fernandez school in Havana, Cuba, on Monday.
Javier Galeano / AP
Sultan Kosen, center, of Turkey, who according to the Guinness World Record Association is the world's tallest man, is helped to get into a vehicle after visiting the Cesareo Fernandez school in Havana, Cuba on Monday.
See a slideshow of more Guinness World Records here.
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From the waist up he looks normal, but it must be the legs as he does not sit tall in the saddle.
He also must be color-blind or have the World's worst taste in sunglasses.;-)
Well come on Darthdon, does it really matter what color the guys' sunglasses are? Or how big they are? He probably wore them for a diversion to give the people something else to focus on besides his towering height.
Give the guy a break as he not only is in the Guiness Book Of Records, but also has to walk around this planet being the size of two average sized men end to end. Not only that but think of all the health problems this poor man has or will have to deal with in his life? He will not live a full term life as most of us expect to do.
Must be hot up there in the summertime.
It would have been nice if they had included his height in the article!!!!
Yes Doug, exactly... a few statistics regarding his world record height would have been appreciated don't ya think? I imagine he is in the 8 foot range, give or take a few inches, but who can know.
Peace.
He's 8' 1"
He in a world by hisself. How is his medical record.
yeah no kidding about the height thing
So True! I kept looking to see how tall he was?
Yes, it's such a pain in the butt to make a few clicks and google his heighth!
Kösen's height was recorded at 2.47 m (8 ft 1.244 in) in his home country by Guinness World Records.
We shouldn't have to make the "few clicks" you suggested! Most people, when reading an article like this, would naturally expect any real journalist to have included such information. Obviously you're not most people and like to do the journalists job for him/her.
Is the free online news service not meeting your expectations, Doug? Your time isn't worth enough to be reading random news stories about tall people, but it's worth just enough that an eight-second google search is inconveinant enough to whine about?
Elitest.
big man .big heart.thats pretty cool.
why does he not play basketball !!
Big Man ,Big heart, that is pretty cool.
why does he not play basketball !!
This unusual height is caused by acromegaly, more commonly known as giantism. It is a tumor on the pituitary gland which causes a hormonal imbalance. Often accompanied by an enlarged heart, bone problems, diabetes, etc. it's a very painful disease because it affects mobility.
My dad was a "guinea pig" at NIH (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD) in the late 60's and early 70's for studies on acromegaly. At that time he was one of only 35 known in the world. He was only 38 when diagnosed, primarily based on his bone growth (shoe size grew from 7 1/2 to 10 in one year), debilitating headaches due to skull growth, and a blood glucose level of nearly 500. After several years of treatment, spinal surgery (growth compressed his spinal cord to the thickness of a piece of paper), and Type 2 diabetes, the diabetes disappeared. Please note that he worked until retirement and died at 80 of metastatic lung cancer.
God bless these people!
Kosen's height is 8 feet plus a little over an inch. More than likely he does not play sports due to joint problems in the knees and hips.
Nice photo shoot, it would have been nice if you actually told us how tall the world's tallest man is...duh!
In addition to the basic question, How tall is he!?! (8' 1.2") A few other journalistic shortcomings not answered, Why was he in Cuba? Why was he at this school? What does a really tall Turk have to with a newly created Cuban foundation? Why didn't they get a bigger car for him to ride in? They did a very good job and mentioning that he's the world's tallest man according to Guinness, though. (3x)
I have heard that people who are so tall have heart problems. I hope he is helthy. He looks like a fun guy, happy with the littl4 child and all that thet.
He was visiting a school...the glasses would have been for the children to laugh about.
Robert Wadlow, The Alton Giant, was 8 ft 11.1 inches tall. He was the world's talest man. He was born in Alton, IL in 1918 and died in 1940. I didn't think Sultan was the world's largest man.
I think he's the current world's tallest man.
I appreciate any person who takes time to be nice to children, ESPECIALLY a person of prominence.
how tall is this gentleman ?
The Sultan's height is exactly 8ft 1.244 inches. I never get you people. You bitch because you don't get his height. You say that it is only a click away. Then you bitch because he's not listed in the world record book. How do you seach anything at all? The word Sultan is a Title. If you type Sultan Kosen into your computer, It will tell you every thing about him. Look for him in an encyclopedia. He's in all of them.
While Sultan was used as a title for the Ottoman rulers, he is not a Sultan. It used in modern Turkey as a boys first name just as some boys are named Prince.
Sultan Kosen is not the world's tallest man at 8 feet 1.1 inches. He just holds the title in the Guinness Word Records Book. The tallest man in the world is Leonid Stadnyk, from Ukraine, at 8 feet 5.5 inches. He was stripped of his Guinness World Records title because he refused to be independently measured and was tired of being in the public eye. The previous record was held by Robert Pershing Wadlow, from Alton, Illinois, measuring 8 feet 11.1 inches, who passed away June 27, 1940.