12-year-old hoopster dazzles Internet
A video showing a primary school girl playing basketball has become an Internet sensation, with many viewers claiming the girl may become a promising future star of Chinese women's basketball.
In the video, 12-year-old Fan Ruiya moved swiftly, controlled the ball firmly and dribbled it through her legs and behind her back to the net. Sometimes she even drove to the basket or scored a three-pointer. Her performance was captured and uploaded by her coach via China's twitter-like Sina Weibo, though she looked much shorter and smaller among the group of participating boys.
Standing at 1.38 meters tall, sixth grader Fan has already taken up basketball as a youth player playing for the second division team in a local club.
She was compared by some Weibo users to Allen Iverson, a retired NBA All-star player, who is one of most prolific scorers in NBA history with strong ability in dribbling, despite his small stature of 1.83 meters.