Uvays Mezhidovich Akhtayev was a prominent Chechen basketball player, master of sport in the former Soviet Union. Being a 238-centimeter-high man, he was to be famed at basketball courts.

Uvays Mezhidovich Akhtayev was born in Vashandarov village of Shatoy region in Chechnya, 1930. He was 236 centimeter and 96 kilogrammes. When the entry Chechen nation deported to Central Asia and Sibiria, he was just 14 years old.

He graduated from the Karaganda Physical Culture college and was going in for boxing, wrestling, track-and-field athletics, putting the shot and discus throwing. As a college student Akhtayev participated in discus throwing competition at a student Olympics in the city of L’vov in 1946. But he was primarily a basketball player by birth. Isaac Camlevich was his first coach in Karaganda. In 1946 Akhtayev moved to Alma-Ata and became a member of the Kazakh team. As a basketball star he was noticed at the 1947 student Olympics. Previously the team was not successful enough, but after Akhtayev became its pivot of a phenomenal height, the team succeeded in reaching the Major League. In 1948 he took part in the country’s basketball championship in Moscow. According to an article issued in the newspaper “Sovietsky Sport” in September 1948, the play of the Alma-Ata team was formed on a unique technique  of a giant player. Other teams’ coaches were elaborating various tactic scenarios to leave Akhtayev without a ball. But being a slow person in everyday life, Akhtayev acted as a player of great technical skills. Playing at the stadium Dynamo he attracted numerous fans. Uvays Akhtayev participated in the basketball championship in Odessa (1950) and Erevan (1952). In 1956 he played in the Kazakh team at the Soviet Olympics taking a victory over the teams of Moscow and Leningrad. In 1959 he left the sportdom.

He was a successful basketball player but he couldn’t play at USSR National Basketball Team cause of he was a Chechen. Soviet authorities offered him to changing his name, but he said “he is honouring to be a Chechen, he will never do it!”. After this facts, the famous couch of USSR, Alexander Gomel did an interview with “Sovietski Sports” newspaper and said “if we let to Uvays for playing at USSR National Team in Olympic Games, then we would be the champion of peace…”.

This amazing basketball player died in Grozny on 1978 when he was 48 years old.