Just as well that Claire Carter, the make-up artist, got her next customer to sit, otherwise it would have meant her finding a stepladder. Claire, a pert 5ft 1in, had applied the finishing touches to Sarah McKay's face when the glamorous blonde unfurled her 42in legs to reveal her full height as she shook out the folds of her miniskirt.

At 6ft 7in, even without high heels, McKay is a formidable sight, but one for the sore eyes of the coaches attempting to meld a Great Britain women's basketball team to take on the world. McKay has that rare combination they seek: tall, athletic and determined. The glamorous looks were a bonus for a photoshoot to show off the nation's high and mighty prospects for Olympic glory.

McKay was one of five members of the squad who gathered at the Welsh Institute of Sport in Cardiff on a rare day off from striving to become the first women basketball players to represent Great Britain at an Olympic Games. Their usual garb is tracksuits and trainers, but The Times gave the girls a makeover before they plough into a series of four international matches that start later this month. While the Beijing Games are at full pelt, Team GB's women will be playing to qualify for the Olympic standard in 2012.

It is a task almost as daunting as McKay's presence. Beyond buying the Michael Jordan Nike trainers, basketball in Britain for most youngsters is more street sport than a serious rival to football or athletics. For women, the sport's profile barely raises a blip on the Olympic horizon, with only a few clubs around the country and virtually no chance for women to play as professionals, unless they are prepared to travel abroad.

Which is why these five women had a job to do in drawing attention to their sport if they are to deepen the pool of talent needed to win Olympic gold - even if it meant submitting to the hairdresser for hours. Kate Butters, the star forward who has just graduated from Loughborough University, refused to follow the strict instructions not to wash off her bright red lipstick by slurping some of the white wine on offer. McKay searched around for shoes she liked best - and that would fit her size 10 feet - before deciding she was safer going barefoot until it was time for the pictures.

They tottered on their heels and giggled as they pulled on their evening dresses, a novelty for girls who often have to shop on the internet to find clothes in their sizes. It is a problem they have in common, as well as one entry on their profiles: the lack of a boyfriend, husband or partner. With the average height of the squad at 6ft 1in, even a towering rugby player would struggle to come eye to eye with one of these girls in heels.

McKay, who has to dip her blonde bob of curls to get through the gym doorway, is sanguine. “I have always been this tall so I am used to it,” she said. “It has its problems, but it has its uses when it comes to basketball.” Looming doorways and small boyfriends are less of a problem for Georgia Jones, the smallest member of the squad, who is positively a squirt at 5ft 8in. Only 18, she illustrates the problem of finding top-level coaching in Britain, pulling out of the last of the upcoming summer internationals to take up a basketball scholarship at a university in Oklahoma.

“There are not many opportunities to play at the top level in Britain, but America is obviously where it all happens, so that is why I want to go over there,” she said. Butters agrees with Jones that basketball needs to raise its profile to have any hope of finding more women able to compete at Olympic level.

“I come from Hastings, in East Sussex, and between the ages of 16 and 18 my dad had to drive me to London twice a week because it was the only place I could play,” Butters said. “Now I will probably have to go abroad to find a club to play professionally.”

Kristy Lavin, 26, who is recovering from a knee ligament operation that made her very aware of the dangers of falling off a pair of 5in stilettos, has been playing in Spain for two years. She tried to combine work as a sports teacher for the disabled and deaf with basketball, but, she said, “ just couldn't do both. If I want to play at London 2012, I had to go abroad.”

The groundwork being done by Lavin and her team-mates in getting into Europe's top Eurobasket division A is having the “Deng Effect”. Just as Luol Deng, the Chicago Bulls superstar from Sudan, chose to draw on his British heritage to play for Great Britain, McKay, born in Vancouver, Canada, and Kim Butler, from Seattle, recognised the upsurge in interest in the sport and got their British passports out of the bottom drawer.

Both have English fathers who emigrated before they were born. But the 6ft 2in Butler says her American twang is drowned by emotion when she sings the national anthem before each game. Just so long as there are no tears to smudge that lovely make-up. Claire could never reach to fix it.

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