Belov, Sergey Alexandrovich

Early years

He was born on January 23, 1944 in the family of Alexander Alexandrovich and Valeria Ippolitovna - indigenous Petersburgers. Father was born in 1906, mother in 1909, both lost their parents very early. Father graduated from the Leningrad Forestry Engineering Academy with a degree in forestry engineering. Mother was a graduate of the pedagogical faculty of Leningrad State University , majoring in biology .

During the war, the Belov family was evacuated to Tomsk . Soon after the family arrived from Leningrad, their father was transferred to work in the regional center of Melnikovo and allocated housing - a rural five-wall in the village of Nashchekovo . The father was mobilized and sent to the front in 1943 ^[4] when the mother was pregnant. Only in 1947 he returned to Nashchekovo after demobilization. Before the war, Sergei's father was the champion of Leningrad in cross-country skiing . In 1950, he received a position in the Tomsk Oblast Executive Committee, and the Belov family moved to Tomsk.

Sergey joined the sport from an early age, giving preference to yard games, from the third grade he began to engage in acrobatics , and from the fourth - athletics . Other parallel hobbies were football, where he acted as a goalkeeper, and only later - basketball. He played for the school team in all popular sports (and in grades 1-2 in chess competitions as well). In 1956, at a school competition, Belova was noticed by the coach Georgy Iosifovich Resh and invited to play basketball. Despite the fact that Belov was much more attracted to football and athletics, he decided to try himself in a new sport.

He began to practice regularly in his basketball section from the 5th grade. From the age of 14, more and more drawn into basketball, Belov began to train with students in the teams that Resh prepared. He followed Resh wherever he worked. Until 1960, Resh coached the team of the Tomsk Civil Engineering Institute, and Belov constantly participated in these trainings. Later Belov, following Reshom, joined the team of the Tomsk Polytechnic, for which, while studying in the 10th and 11th grades, he already played in competitions ^[5] .

In 1962 he graduated from high school number 8 in Tomsk ( Kirov Avenue ).

Player

He began his career in the Uralmash team (coach Yuri Gustylev), in which he played in 1964-1967. and from where he was invited to the USSR national team . In 1967 he received two titles at once - the world and European champions. In 1968 he moved to Moscow , where he played for CSKA for the next 12 years (until 1980). Speaking for CSKA, he won the USSR champion title 11 times (1969-1974 and 1976-1980), became the silver (1975) and bronze (1968) medalists in the national championship, and in 1973 he won the USSR Cup . In 1971, CSKA won the European Cup , Sergey Belov was a playing coach. In 1969, he also won the tournament as a CSKA player.

Playing for the USSR national team (1967-1980), Belov also won many titles: Olympic champion in 1972, two - time world champion (1967, 1974), four-time European champion (1967, 1969, 1971, 1979), champion of the 1970 Universiade. In addition, he won three times the bronze medalist of the Olympic Games (1968, 1976, 1980), was silver (1978) and bronze (1970) the medalist of the world championships, twice won silver (1975, 1977) and once bronze (1973) at the European Championships .

Sergey Belov lit a fire at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.

Coach

In 1981-1982 and 1988-1989 he worked as a coach at CSKA. Together with him, the club became the champion of the USSR in the 1989/1990 season.

In early 1990, he signed a contract for 2 years with the team of the 1st league “Cassino” (Italy), with which he eventually worked until mid-1993.

In October 1993, Belov became president of the Russian Basketball Federation and worked in this position until 1998, while he was the head coach of the Russian national basketball team . At the world championships in Canada in 1994, the national team led by Belov won silver medals, losing in the final to the “ dream team ” from the United States . At the European Championships in Spain in 1997, the Russian team won 3rd place, at the World Championships in Greece in 1998 - second, repeating the success of four years ago.

In 1999, Belov moved to work as a head coach at Ural Great ( Perm ), with whom he won the Russian Championship twice (2001, 2002), became the two-time silver medalist of the Russian Basketball Championship (2000, 2003), and won NEBL (2001) . He was later president of this club.

He was the head coach of the Russian men's student team at the Universiade 2009 in Belgrade, winning silver medals with her ^[6] .

Functionary

In 2007, Sergey Belov became one of the founders of the Student Basketball Association . In it, he took the post of sports director and held it until his death. Under the leadership of Sergey Belov, ASB has become Europe’s largest student sports league ^[7] .

Death

He died at the 70th year of life on October 3, 2013 in Perm . Farewell took place on October 6 at USK CSKA . He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery next to the grave of basketball coach Alexander Gomelsky .

Family

He was twice married, father of two children ^[8] . In his book, he writes that he is married three times.

Team Achievements

As a player

Uralmash

• Champion of the RSFSR ( 3 ): 1965, 1966, 1967

CSKA

• European Cup Winner ( 2 ): 1969 , 1971
• USSR Champion ( 11 ): 1969 , 1970 , 1971 , 1972 , 1973 , 1974 , 1976 , 1977 , 1978 , 1979 , 1980
• USSR Cup Winner ( 2 ): 1972, 1973

USSR national team

• Olympic champion: 1972
• World Champion ( 2 ): 1967 , 1974
• European Champion ( 4 ): 1967 , 1969 , 1971 , 1979
• Universiade winner: 1970

As a trainer

CSKA

• USSR Champion ( 2 ): 1982 , 1990

Russian team

• Vice World Champion ( 2 ): 1994 , 1998
• European Championship bronze medalist: 1997
• Universiade Silver medalist: 2009

Ural Great

• Champion NEBL : 2001
• Champion of Russia ( 2 ): 2001 , 2002
• Russian Cup Winner: 2004

Personal Achievements

As a player

• World Championship most valuable player : 1970
• The most valuable player in the European Championship : 1969
• The most productive player in the final of the European Cup ( 3 ): 1970 , 1972 , 1974
• FIBA's 50 Greatest Players : 1991 (No. 1)
• Basketball Hall of Fame (1992)
• FIBA Order of Merit (1995)
• FIBA Hall of Fame (2007)
• 50 people who contributed the most to the Euroleague : 2008

Rewards

• Order of Honor (2006) - for his great contribution to the development of domestic basketball and high sports achievements ^[9]
• The Order of the Badge of Honor (1972) - for successes in the development of mass physical culture movement in the country and high achievements of Soviet athletes at the XX Summer Olympic Games ^[10]
• Medal "For Labor Distinction" (1968) - for successes achieved in the development of the Soviet physical culture movement, ^[11]
• Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1969)
• Honored Trainer of Russia (1995) ^[12]
• Honored Coach of the USSR
• Honored Worker of Physical Culture of the Russian Federation (2003) - for his great contribution to the development of physical culture and sports ^[13]
• Honorary Citizen of Tomsk Oblast (2007) - for his great contribution to the development of sports, his active work in promoting a healthy lifestyle ^[14] .
• Honorary Citizen of Perm Territory (2013, posthumous) - for services to the state and outstanding contribution to the development of physical culture and sports ^[15] .
• Acknowledgment from the President of the Russian Federation (2010) for active work in popularizing and supporting children's sports in the Russian Federation ^[16] .
• Silver Olympic Order of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) (1994) ^[17]

In 1991, as a result of a survey of a group of international basketball experts (mainly coaches), the International Basketball Federation recognized Belov as the best basketball player among the players who played for their national teams (excluding NBA players). The second place in the survey was taken by Drazen Petrovich , and the third - Arvydas Sabonis .

On May 11, 1992, Sergey Belov became the first non-American to enter the Basketball Hall of Fame .

Every year in Tomsk there is a tournament among youth teams, which bears the name of Sergey Belov. Competitions have the status of all-Russian. In 2016, the tournament was held for the forty-sixth time.

Since 2015, the All-Russian play-offs of the Student Basketball Association , in which 64 of the country's best male and female student teams participate, has been called the “Belova League” ^[18] . ACB completely dedicated its 12th season to Sergey Belov, who would have turned 75 in January 2019 ^[19] .

In the film Upward Movement (2017, dir. A. Megerdichev), which is dedicated to the victory of the USSR team at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, the role of Sergey Belov was played by Kirill Zaitsev .

Belov, Sergey Alexandrovich // Tomsk from A to Z: A Brief Encyclopedia of the City. / Ed. Dr. East. Sciences N. M. Dmitrienko . - 1st ed. - Tomsk: NTL Publishing House, 2004 .-- S. 31-32. - 440 s. - 3,000 copies. - ISBN 5-89503-211-7 .

• Belov, Sergey Alexandrovich at the Rodovod . Tree of ancestors and descendants
• Five main stories about Sergey Belov
• Biography of Sergey Belov
• Olympic champion 72 Sergey Belov: Our basketball lives off handouts. Interview
• Sergey Belov - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com