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Steven Senne / AP
Shoe engineers examine foot imprints from Igor Vovkovinskiy, of Minneapolis, at Reebok headquarters, in Canton, Mass. on Thursday. Vovkovinskiy, who has a shoe size between 22 and 26, says he's had 16 surgeries in six years to fix problems created by shoes that didn't fit. The engineers intend to use the imprints to help create sneakers for Vovkovinskiy with a good fit.
The tallest man in the U.S. met with shoe engineers so they could make him special shoes strong enough to support his massive frame. Msnbc.com's Alex Witt reports.
Steven Senne / AP
Igor Vovkovinskiy, of Minneapolis, currently the tallest man in the United States at seven feet eight inches, has an imprint taken of his foot by technicians.
Laura T. Coffey reports for TODAY.com about Igor Vovkivinskiy's quest for shoes that fit:
From the perspective of most people, Vovkivinskiy is a giant. At 7-foot-8.33 inches tall, he’s the tallest man in the United States, and he’s been dealing with a colossal problem: He can’t find shoes that fit.
Vovkivinskiy isn’t even sure of his shoe size anymore; he hasn’t been able to buy shoes in a store since he was a teenager. His inability to find footwear that truly fits him resulted in 16 surgeries on his feet in the past five years, leading to foot deformities and constant pain.
Video: Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira meet the world's tallest man
So, Vovkivinskiy decided to take a giant step toward a solution: He started a fund-raising website and a Facebook page asking people to help him pay for a new pair of kicks. Scores of strangers have opened their hearts and their wallets to Vovkivinskiy, donating more than $37,000 to help him combat his Goliath-size shoe challenges.
And, on Friday, athletic apparel giant Reebok announced that it wanted to fly Vovkivinskiy out to its headquarters in Canton, Mass., and custom-make a pair of shoes just for him. Read more.
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Steven Senne / AP
Paul Robinson, a shoe technician at Reebok, measures a pair of shoes belonging to Igor Vovkovinskiy.
Steven Senne / AP
Igor Vovkovinskiy has his foot measured.
Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters
Look through images of the biggest, fastest, longest, weirdest and wackiest record breakers from the 2012 edition of Guinness World Records.
Leave a Comment:
Almost everybody wants to be tall. I guess you can be too tall.
Being that tall creates so many complications. And I'm not talking about worrying if you are going to bump your head in the door way. His ankle, lower back, heart, and feet are constantly over worked and under intense pressure. Very tall people like this generally don't have a super long life span. It's actually very sad. It's a lonely and painful life being like that. My heart goes out to him.
Being 6'6" tall myself, I can tell you it's not as much fun as most people think. Yes there are perks, but they are out weighed by the many inconveniences in a world custom made for those between 5'5" and 6'1": Finding a car that you can see out of, assuming you can even fit in the bloody thing in the first place; purchasing clothes that actually fit and don't look like you wore wool through the shower; finding shoes (size 15 is easier than 26, but still not that easy!). This leaves out the myriad of medical complications that come along with being tall... arthritis from our joints growing faster being one of the least of our concerns.
I hope that they make more than one pair for Igor. One they have the mold made, fix him up with shoes for a lifetime in a variety of colors.
being tall (>6ft 4inch) is great between ages of 12-25.... after that its nothing but a life (another 50+ years) of aches, stiff joints, heath issues and frustration to find clothes that fit decent
Reebok? what the hell is the matter with Phil Knight of Nike? He missed a marketing opportunity! Oh, I forgot, he just markets to the NBA and the NFL and NCAA...
This poor guy, 7'8....I'm surprised Mini Cooper (the car company) didnt try to make a specially designed car for him..
It's all about sales and marketing folx...
MSNBC, I commend you for being able to find a story for which you can be responsible enough to accurately report without inserting a twisting, tainting bias. You should feel good about this.
Duphas Maybe some of the other stations Sites should take note Fox news comes to mind. Watched Hannity to try and understand another point of view. And its just hateful and tasteless.
And this whole time I've been looking for BigFoot in Washington State!
Saw him on the news last night. Seemed like such a nice guy. As someone with size 14 feet, I feel for him. Its a whole lot easier to find size 14 shoes now than it was when I was a kid, but I doubt he's ever going to find shoe shopping easy.
Brings things into prespective - I thought I had trouble finding shoes that fit!
I've been wear size 14 since I was in the 7th grade. It's definitely easier to find them now. I remember growing up and the stores around me would have one or two pairs if any, and they were always basketball sneakers. Thank God for Zappos.
wow. reebok is awesome. :)
What about someone who has one of the widest feet in America. I wear a size 8.5 EEEE. Can you help me out? I am a nice guy too :)
Are you Howard the duck by any chance?
8.5 EEEE, WOW. I wear 12EE and thought it was bad. I hope you were a competitive swimmer :)
you must be part hobbit - I hope they got a role for you in the new movie.
wilieturner,
Set something up on facebook. It couldn't hurt.
I'm curious how much it costs for a shoe engineer and how many pairs of shoes he can get with what's left of the $37,000 donations.
No. You are not special enough ;-)
wilieturner, you don't happen to have any native American ancestry do you? My feet are size 11.5 EEEE, and my great grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee. Also, I read an article about a year ago that some native American tribes have extra wide feet, and a shoe company started making shoes to fit them. Can't seem to find the article now.
Hitchcock has shoes widths 6EEEEEE,I wear a 7.5 6EEEEEE.In the Marine Corps I wore a 6.5 4FFFF.If my feet were any wider I wouldn't need snow shoes.WilieTurner on your browser go wideshoes.com.
I missed the "read more" part. 15K?
Abe,
Thay called me special in grade school. :(
"His inability to find footwear that truly fits him resulted in 16 surgeries on his feet in the past five years"
You would think that surgery (esp. 16 of them) would cost more than having custom shoes made, I don't know...
I'm guessing he did have 'custom' footwear made - considering the sizes he wears aren't likely to be at Foot Locker or Payless... just that the ones that were made for him didn't fit right, thus the addition of the word 'truly'.
Health insurance would probably cover the surgeries, but not shoes that aren't related to the recovery.
That is cool, its a good thing to see people who can help.
Sarah Palin would call that Socialism
Really? Are you serious?
People voluntarily donated money to him, and a shoe company voluntarily flew him in to fit shoes for him.
That is truly the Christian way. Sarah Palin would be proud.
He needs to contact Shaq O'neal.
Grundman Shoes in Vincennes Indiana makes custom footwear. They made shoes for the tallest woman in the world.
grundmanshoe DOT com
You know what they say about big feet...
"Big Feet..........Big Boots!!!
(Cowboy Curtis, from Pee Wee's Playhouse)
Big condoms.
DisillusionedFaithful
Big Pee Wee.
Kudo's to Reebok for stepping up to the plate for this guy...........
Nothing more than a publicity stunt.... F*ck you NIKE!!
Big nose, big toes, big hose.
Somebody has plenty of money to help me, you and lots of others. There are philanthropists, some people that like to help others without need for kickbacks, etc. just because they like helping others. The people that helped were not forced to help. He asked and some people answered. I guess you don't believe in the humanity of others. Surgeries were probably on his insurance. So, he has time to pay on those or he may have found a doctor that would donate their service to him. Sometimes you have not because you ask not.
Yeah, but it doesn't always work out this way. I have the worlds smallest penis (size of a worm) and cannot find condoms. I have appealed to the public, but all they have done is send me fish hooks.
-Oh the hu-manatee.
Unless he's on a federal-funded healthcare, I doubt "we" or China had anything to do with his surgeries.
Don't be mad that he took the initiative to ask for help paying for something that wouldn't be covered by insurance. Good fitting shoes have a huge impact on your overall health and comfort. Without decent shoes, those surgeries would be rendered useless.
There are so many shoe companies. Where is Nike and rest of them. The man needs more then one pair of shoes. I am sure RED WING SHOES has his size.
"Igor Vovkovinskiy...has an imprint taken of his foot by technicians."
I thought they were known as Cobblers.
In America there known as " ShoeMakers" There are many in every city, town in the USA.
I think in America today they are properly referred to as "Shoe Making-Americans."
Maybe their job is limited to making imprints and casts. I wouldn't exactly call them a cobbler if they weren't involved in actually putting the shoe together.
i only count 4 toes...
I noticed that too! But I noticed the imprint had the pattern of fabric from a sock, so maybe standing in his socks somehow obscured that extra toe. Also, he probably has a very curled up little piggy toe, like what runs in my family.
They had to cut the small one off to fit in the mold they made. Can't put a square peg in a round hole. (I'm kidding. I really don't have a clue.)
I'm thinking it may just be the angle of the photo,lighting and such...maybe a sad result of one of his many surgeries?
Wow. 7 feet 8.33 inches. Now THAT'S tall. I hope he gets his new shoes. Good luck Igor
Shame, shame, SHAME Reebok!!! Really??? This guy has been asking for help for YEARS! And you charge him that amount of money??? Why? Are you afraid that thousands of giants would ask you for help?? Clearly you have your head up the wrong side of your spinal column. Never buying your products again.
Reebok is too busy giving shoes to very wealthy athletes who can afford to buy a few thousand pairs. And as for those who are making snarky comments about him asking for help, did it ever occur to them that most likely he is not able to hold down a job? Being a giant is not all it is made out to be. There is a lot of pain for this young man in just getting up every day. It isn't like he asked for this condition. There is very little compassion for people today who need help for special circumstances and a special circumstance is not sitting on one's backside refusing to work. There are solutions, see what you can come up first before asking for help and then be grateful you are not trying to walk in his shoes.
How much did they charge him? I did not see the price of the shoes stated in the article. All I saw was that people have donated $37,000 to help him pay for shoes. That does not indicate the cost of the shoes. You might want to re-read the article. Or not make assumptions. I'm sure Reebok won't care if you never buy their shoes again--each one of us is just a penny in their bank account anyway.
Andrea Schwartz,
You did not read enough, they are doing everything for free, donating everything to him.
When I was a kid in the 50's my local cobbler shop [yes, shoes got fixed then, not just tossed] had some photos in the window of a guy, also from the Ukraine I think, who was about 7 or 8' tall [I lean toward the 8' figure], and they had pictures [and maybe a prototype, not sure on that now] of his shoes, which were enormous. I can still remember marveling at the black and white photos of him and the shoes. Amazing what old folks remember. I think, like Jaws from the Bond movies and Andre the Giant [wrestler/movie star] these big guys don't last all that long [no pun intended]. Hope they can fit him OK.
I'm right there with you. I'm female, and I wear a 13 extra/extra wide. I'm tall, and my feet are proportional, but shoe fit and size is an issue. (They are very difficult to find, but not impossible. Thank you cross-dressers!) I've got problems because of ill-fitting shoes, too. I really feel for this guy. I know what he's going through.
With unemployment at a high right now, some folks might want to apprentice in a cobbler's shop. There's a market for specialty shoes, (although 37K is a bit on the grandiose side.) I'd pay a couple of hundred dollars for a nice pair of shoes that were built well and fit right.
Good for him!!! There's nothing like a good fitting pair of shoes.
This kind of story encourages me! Kindness rules!
Igor lives in Rochester, Mn., not Minneapolis MSNBC.
To anyone outside the midwest, the whole of Minnesota exists in Minneapolis; just watch the movie Mighty Ducks; they claim kids from Brooklyn Park, Edina, Minneapolis and Stillwater would all somehow play on the same team, and be able to rollerblade from one "neighborhod" to another. Never mind that it is 17 miles from Brooklyn Park to Edina then another 30 miles from Edina to Stillwater. Or the fact that each of these towns has several dozen peewee hockey teams.
i love watching movies made about/in/around the st paul/minnapolis area, my favorite is in Fargo when marg in "just going to take a spin around moose lake" before heading back to Brainard, even though it can be done, it is quite a distance, 77 miles...lol
bethanne - how many people that watched that movie do you think realize Fargo isn't even in MN? I actually grew up in the Grand Rapids area and now live East of the cities and it always baffles me how they act as if MN is the size of Rhode Island. And for the life of me, I have never met anyone with the "Minnesoooota" accent.
I wonder if trojan will make him a custom condom. Cuz he's gotta be packing a weapon of @ss destruction down there.
So bigfoot has been found?....
I'm 6'9" and weigh 330 and wear a size 17.5 EEEEEE....try and find a shoe that wide!