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Legendary Olympic basketball champion Sergei Belov dies

He was recognized as the most valuable player of the FIBA World Cup in 1970
Photo ITAR-TASS/ Veronika Sovetova
Photo ITAR-TASS/ Veronika Sovetova

MOSCOW, October 3 (Itar-Tass) - Olympic basketball champion of the Summer Olympics Munich-1972 Sergei Belov died in the city of Perm, Ural region, at the age of 69 years after the illness on Thursday, press attaché of the basketball club CSKA Moscow Nikolai Tsynkevich told Itar-Tass.

In the Soviet Union national basketball team Sergei Belov also became a three-time bronze medallist of the Olympics, won two world championships and four European championships. He also played for CSKA Moscow for 13 years.

He was recognized as the most valuable player of the FIBA World Cup in 1970.

Pavel Mikhalev, who led the USSR Basketball Federation at the 1972 Olympics, said that Sergei Belov was a truly unique player. He was a basketball player who “made the impossible possible: for the first time in history he and his team left the Americans without the Olympic gold.”