A 16-year-old Brit is being hailed as the tallest teen in the world — standing at an incredible 7 feet and 4 inches.
And to top it all, Brandon Marshall — who doctors say is still growing — has just fulfilled his sporting dream and been picked for the Welsh national basketball team.
Marshall’s mom, Lynne Quelch, 49, said: “I can’t believe he’s still growing. It’s crazy, walking down the road with Marshall. People stop him, asking for photos with him. To be honest I don’t know what height he is going to reach.
“He is so shy as well bless him, he is so introvert.
“When people notice his height, he says, ‘Oh here we go again, yes I am tall, yes I am Britain’s tallest teenager.'”
Marshall, of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, hit the headlines last year when he grew to 6 feet, 11 inches to become Britain’s tallest teenager.
But he has now grown an extra 5 inches in less than a year and is believed to be the tallest teen in the world.
The former record holder, Broc Brown, an American who stands 7 feet, 8 inches tall, turned 20 last year.
Marshall said: “I was a normal size up until the age of nine. I then had a big growth spurt. I was about 6 feet when I was about 13 and I started to grow a lot more by then.”
“When I was in year nine I got to 6 feet, 7 inches and in year 10 I got to 7 feet. Shoes have always been a problem because I will never be able to find them and they are really expensive.”
Marshall, who trains three times a week with national league team Bury Bulldogs has now been selected for the Wales national basketball team— as his mother is Welsh.
He is currently training for his first professional game and will be jetting off to Lithuania next month.
The teenager was able to slam dunk — slamming a basketball through a 10-feet-high hoop while hanging on the edge— at the age of 13.
Marshall, who has size 17 feet, is still completing his GCSE’s and is currently looking for basketball academies where he will be able to complete his A-levels.
Quelch said: “All the good colleges that have good basketball academies attached to them are all fighting over him as to who will get him. He absolutely loves it.
“He already now plays for Wales and he has just done his first training last weekend with the Welsh international team.”
Marshall, who is known to his friends as “Tiny,” struggles with the everyday tasks people take for granted including finding a bed to fit him.
Quelch said: “He does tend to struggle with roofs, ceilings, doorways — just everything normal-size people take for granted. He has got a super king bed at the moment but we are having one made for him.
“It’s $1,300 to make and it’s two doubled together, which will give him an 8-foot-in-length bed. We are having it specially made for him and he will be able to have a bit in the middle that can extend to a 9-foot bed if he carries on growing.
“I don’t even think it is going to fit in his bedroom, we might have to extend it to fit it in.”
Because of his height, Marshall must consume 8,000 calories a day and snacks on toasted sandwiches and microwaveable snacks in between meals.
Quelch said: “I am constantly shopping to keep the fridge stocked.”
Marshall is under the genetics team at Addenbrooke’s hospital as they want to investigate into why he is reaching these dramatic heights.
The hospital tested Marshall for Marfan syndrome — a genetic disorder of connective issues — but it was negative.
People with Marfan tend to be tall, thin, with long arms, legs, fingers and toes.
Quelch said: “They want to look into why he is as tall as he is and they still haven’t got an answer to that. They said about four months ago he will only grow about 5 centimeters, but he has killed that and he is still going. They were doing test for Marfan syndrome which would make sense as to why his hands are so large and he is as destructive as he is.
“All his tests results have come back inconclusive, which means he hasn’t got it because it would be a definitive yes or no and so they are a bit baffled. I think he has just got a mixture of large genes in him.”
Previous tests showed that he is missing chromosome 12, known as the height-cropper chromosome.
Quelch said: “His height gene is mutated, so they are looking into it further because it has only ever been seen once before. But medically, everyday wise, he just gets on with it. He just has to bend through everything so he doesn’t clonk his head. We have always made the comment that he was going to be tall because he was born with such long feet and fingers.
“And that was the first thing that everybody noticed about him. But, he started shooting past his peers at about 8 and 9. His arms are like skeletal and completely out of proportion to his body.”
Marshall is the middle child among his siblings.
His 30-year-old brother, Zak, is 6 feet, 4 inches, and his 25-year-old sister, Zoe, is 5 feet, 6 inches.
His younger brother, Jordan, 12, who has cerebral palsy, is at an average height for his age.
Marshall’s mom is 5 feet, 11 inches, and his father is 6 feet, 10 inches.
Paul Sturgess of the UK, who currently holds the title for Britain’s tallest man, stands at 7 feet, 7 inches.
And, Robert Pershing Wadlow from the US currently holds the title for the world’s tallest man at 8 feet, 11 inches.
Quelch split with Marshall’s biological father shortly after he was born and has been married to Marshalls’s stepdad, Faron Quelch, for three years.
Marshall will be playing a game against Lithuania in August.