By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
One of the greatest European players of all time, Sergey Belov, died today in Perm, Russia as news agency “TASS” reported. Sergei Alexandrovich Belov was born in 1944 and he became a legend in the sixties and the seventies. As a player of CSKA Moscow he won the USSR League championship eleven times (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980), the USSR Cup twice (1972, 1973), and the Euroleague twice, in 1969 and 1971.
The game that made him famous all over the world was the gold medal game of the 1972 Olympics, when he scored 20 points and led the USSR in the 51-50 win over the USA. As a member of the Soviet Union national basketball team for fourteen years (1967–1980), Belov won the gold medal (1972) and three bronze medals (1968, 1976, 1980) at the Olympic Games. He was also FIBA World champion in 1967 and 1974 and the FIBA European champion in 1967, 1969, 1971, and 1979.
As a coach he won the USSR league championship with CSKA Moscow in 1982 and 1990, the Russian Superleague with Ural Great Perm in 2001 and 2002, two silver medals with the Russian national team at the FIBA World Championships of 1994 and 1998 and also the bronze medal at the Eurobasket 1997.
He was the first international player who became a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on May 11, 1992. He was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007 and he was named of the 50 Greatest Euroleague Contributors in 2008.