Purple Panda, the favored halftime acrobat identified for balancing bowls on her head whereas perched excessive on a unicycle, fell exhausting to the court docket Tuesday evening whereas performing on the Commissioner’s Cup closing between the WNBA’s Indiana Fever and Minnesota Lynx in Minneapolis.
Using on her custom-made unicycle a minimum of 7 toes off the ground, Purple Panda appeared to lose her stability early in her routine, then fell ahead off her seat. She landed on her behind and instantly appeared to seize her left wrist.
Video footage exhibits her being helped to her toes and taking quite a few steps with help earlier than sitting again down on the court docket. A wheelchair was finally introduced out to assist her off the ground.
Purple Panda performs at halftime throughout a Clippers-Pelicans recreation on Jan. 5, 2024, in New Orleans.
(Tyler Kaufman / Related Press)
Born Rong Niu in Taiyuan, China, reportedly within the early Seventies, Purple Panda is a fourth-generation acrobat who was first employed to carry out throughout halftime at an NBA recreation by the Los Angeles Clippers in 1993. She has since been a staple at NBA video games and quite a few different athletic occasions, together with her signature routine of utilizing her toes to flip bowls onto her head whereas balancing excessive on her unicycle.
Niu suffered a damaged arm greater than a decade in the past after falling backwards off her unicycle whereas practising.
At Recreation 5 between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder final month, Purple Panda gave a fast checklist off the highest of her head of all of the NBA Finals at which she has carried out. It was in depth.
“Oh my God,” she mentioned. “I did it for L.A. I did it for Chicago Bulls — that’s many years ago for the [Michael] Jordan years. And then, I did San Antonio, I did Boston, Warriors, Detroit. … And now I’m in OKC.”
With out the providers of injured celebrity Caitlin Clark for the third straight recreation, Indiana defeated Minnesota 74-59 to win the Commissioner’s Cup, the WNBA’s in-season event, for the primary time. As Fever guard Sydney Colson live-streamed the gamers’ locker room celebration, Clark leaned in entrance of the digicam and wished the injured acrobat properly.
“Red Panda, we love you,” mentioned Clark, whose sentiments have been echoed by a number of of her teammates.
