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Three candidates vie for post of Russian women's national basketball team’s head coach

German Olaf Lange is leaving office

Russian women's basketball team players Sergei Bobylev/TASS

Russian women's basketball team players

© Sergei Bobylev/TASS

MOSCOW, August 1. /TASS, Andrey Kartashov/. Three people are viewed as candidates for the post of head coach of the Russian women’s national basketball team, Andrei Kirilenko, the president of the Russian Basketball Federation (RBF), told TASS on Thursday.

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The RBF president told TASS earlier that Russia’s governing basketball body decided against extending a contract with Head Coach Olaf Lange. The German specialist has served as the head coach of the Russian women’s basketball team since 2017.

"Our list of candidates includes Elen Shakirova, Dmitry Donskov and Alexander Kovalev," RBF President Kirilenko stated to TASS.

Shakirova, 49, played for Moscow basketball clubs CSKA and Dynamo, as well as for Russia’s Vologda-Chevakata, Nadezhda Orenburg and Energia Ivanovo. She also played for US clubs Houston Comets and Charlotte Sting, Polish club Lotos Gdynia and the Czech club Gambrinus.

Representing the former Soviet basketball team, Shakirova won the bronze of the 1991 European Basketball Championship. She also became the 1992 Summer Olympics champion while defending the team of the Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS).

Under the Russian national team, Shakirova is two-time bronze medalist (1995 and 1999) and one-time silver medalist (2005) of the European Women’s Basketball Championships. She currently serves as the head coach of the Inventa Kursk women’s basketball club as well as a chief assistant coach of the U20 national women’s team.

Dmitry Donskov is the head coach of the Russian Under-20 women’s national team and of Dynamo basketball club, which is based in west Siberia’s Novosibirsk Region. He led the women’s youth basketball team of Russia twice to win the titles of the European champions.

Alexander Kovalev has been working as a senior coach of the Russian U19 women’s basketball team since 2017.

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