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Myron MedcalfSep 29, 2025, 10:42 AM<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Myron Medcalf covers college basketball for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2011.<\/p>\n Months after experiencing a scary fall during a WNBA Commissioner’s Cup game, Rong Niu — better known as the unicycle performer Red Panda — has a message for her supporters and fans: She’s coming back.<\/p>\n Niu suffered a serious wrist injury<\/a> after she fell off her 7-foot unicycle while doing her patented act of tossing bowls onto her head while balancing on the one-wheeler at halftime of an Indiana Fever<\/a>–Minnesota Lynx<\/a> game in July. The injury required a lengthy surgical procedure and sidelined her for the rest of the WNBA season.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks 1 Related<\/p>\n On Sunday, her agency said Niu expects to return during the 2025-26 men’s and women’s college basketball and NBA seasons. She already is practicing again and preparing to get back onto the court.<\/p>\n “We are sending out this note to thank everyone for their heartfelt wishes to Red Panda for a speedy recovery from her fall,” said Pat Figley, Niu’s agent, in a memo. “It was a very serious injury and she did require surgery. She appreciated all the sincere follow-up. It was amazing and very touching. She really appreciates all of the support. She is recovering well and is practicing. She is looking forward to performing this season.”<\/p>\n Before the injury, Niu’s Red Panda act was a staple of halftimes at NBA, WNBA and college basketball games throughout the country. Fans often would forgo halftime trips to the restroom or concession stands to watch Niu’s performance.<\/p>\n Figley said Niu does not have a specific return date in mind but that she is on track to make her comeback in the months ahead.<\/p>\n “She is healing,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Myron MedcalfSep 29, 2025, 10:42 AM CloseMyron Medcalf covers college basketball for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2011.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-177358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/r215919_1296x729_16-9.jpg&w=130&h=130&scale=crop&location=origin.jpeg\")
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