(Chris Graythen via Getty Images)
No halftime show delights fans as consistently as Red Panda and her seemingly impossible unicycle and bowls routine, which made Tuesday’s performance at the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup final so disheartening.
The arena legend left the floor at Minnesota’s Target Center in a wheelchair after falling from her 7-foot-tall unicycle and appearing to injure her wrist, among other things.
Red Panda, Rong “Krystal” Niu, attempted to walk off the floor with some help, but eventually stopped while a wheelchair was brought out to take her away.
The fall also had some potential consequences for the game before the Indiana Fever and Minnesota Lynx came out for the second half, as arena employees took some time to repair a dent in the court.
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Among the people concerned about Red Panda were members of the Fever, who defeated the Lynx 74-59 to win a $500,000 prize pool. On an Instagram Live hosted by Fever guard Sydney Colson, injured Fever star Caitlin Clark sent a message of support while also filling in some teammates in on what happened.
Put simply, there is no other performer who does what Red Panda has been doing since the ’90s. The fourth-generation Chinese acrobat has become a legendary presence in the world of basketball, where fans who regularly attend games will almost inevitably see her do her act and wonder how on Earth what she does is possible.
At more than 50 years old, she’s still going strong and even making some new inroads into television. She made the semifinals of “Britain’s Got Talent” this year and was part of a storyline in Netflix’s “Running Point,” in which one of the characters ponders, “How is she not the most famous person on Earth?” She was previously a contestant on “America’s Got Talent” as well.
