The highest American Igor Vovkovinskiy died, measuring 2.34 meters – SME.sk

WASHINGTON. Igor Vovkovinskiy, who was officially the tallest American, died in Rochester, Minnesota, 38 at the age of 38. The AP agency informed about it on Monday.

His family announced that Vovkovinskiy died Friday as a result of heart disease. His mother Svetlana works as a nurse at the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Rochester, where her son died.

Igor Vovkovinskiy was born on September 8, 1982 in the Ukrainian city of Bar. He came to the Mayo Clinic in the USA for the first time in a year 1989. The tumor pushing on his pituitary gland caused it to secrete an abnormally high amount of growth hormone. The boy eventually grew to a height of 234.5 centimeters and settled in Rochester.

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When he was 27, he was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the tallest man living in the United States. According to his older brother, who gave an interview to the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Igor was a “star” after coming to the USA, but he would rather “live a normal life”.

In 2009, he was noticed by a US president during a speech Barack Obama. Igor was wearing a T-shirt with the words “Obama’s biggest supporter.”

In 2012, he organized a public fundraiser to finance special shoes that would not cause him “huge pain” while walking. Generous donors have significantly exceeded the target of $ 16,000.

One of the American companies producing sports shoes subsequently made tailor-made sneakers for him free of charge.

In 2013, Igor Vovkovinskiy appeared in the song song Eurovision Song Contest, when he brought the Ukrainian singer Zlata Ognevičová to the stage during the final performance in the Swedish city of Malmö.

The last farewell to the deceased American of Ukrainian origin will be in Rochester on Saturday, August 28.