Having arrived as a permanent resident at Madame Tussauds Sydney just in time for Chinese New Year, the retired NBA star dwarfed even the taller Sydney Kings players while taking the court with the likes of Sydney Kings Co-captain Ben Madgen, Charles Carmouche, NBA import Sam Young and Cody Ellis.
Capturing the essence of his amazing career on the basketball court, Yao Ming is portrayed from 2010 and sees him in mid-action with an intense look of concentration while shooting a three pointer. The Sydney Kings players blocked, jumped, dribbled and shot baskets around the HoustonRockets superstar, making for a spectacular scene of showmanship.
The towering player first rose to fame as the ‘Little Giant’ in his hometown of Shanghai when selected to represent China in the Chinese National Team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics at the age of 19. At 228.6 centimetres, Yao Ming became the tallest player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) when he played as a centre player for the Houston Rockets in Texas, USA.
The basketball legend is the 3rd Chinese player in NBA history to play professional basketball, has been selected several times to play on All-NBA teams and the NBA All-Star Games.
Expertly crafted, the Yao Ming wax figure took a staggering 800 hours, 60 Madame Tussaud's artists and 250 different measurements to complete, along with exact colour matches for his eyes, skin tone and hair. Due to Yao Ming’s large stature, Madame Tussaud’s artists had to insert twice as many individual hairs, coming in at a total of around 300,000 real strands of hair.
Sydney Kings Co-captain Ben Madgen said: "Yao Ming held a massive influence on the court, but I never got to appreciate just how big he was, watching him on telly. Matching up against a wax figure of him has put it all into perspective and it’s just unbelievable”.
Yao Ming will stand tall next to the other heroes in the sports zone of Madame Tussauds Sydney and will be amongst the attraction’s Chinese New Year celebrations. Guests will be able to shoot hoops with the star in an interactive court setting amongst other Aussie sporting stars such as Mark Webber, Lleyton Hewitt, Glenn McGrath and Dawn Fraser.
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