101 Greats of European Basketball

Officer and
gentleman
In 1991, FIBA published the results of a survey
of their own about the best player in the history
of FIBA basketball. The name at the top of the
list was Sergei Belov, the great captain of CSKA
Moscow and the USSR national team. Today, the
result would probably be different, but nobody
can deny that Belov is among our sport’s greatest
ever. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
in Springfield recognized this fact by inducting Belov
in 1992 as the first European player ever to be included
there.
I had double luck: first I followed him as a player from
1967, the year of his debut with the USSR at the World
Championships in Uruguay, until he retired after the
1980 Olympics in Moscow. I saw him in his most glorious
moment, as the last carrier of the Olympic flame to
light the torch at Lenin Stadium in Moscow, and also in
his last games with the national team. After that, I met
Belov as a head coach. We have spoken many times,
but never like we did during EuroBasket 2007 in Madrid,
where he gave me an interview for EuroLeague.net that
caught many people’s attention all over Europe.
From a difficult childhood to glory
Sergei Aleksandrovich Belov was born on January
23, 1944, in the village of Nashekovic, region of Tomsk.
Before giving birth to Sergei, his mother survived the
famous siege of Stalingrad with her elder brother. The
father, an engineer, worked far from home and the family
got back together in 1947. The gift for the small child was
a football, something scarce and valuable at that time.
Sergei wouldn’t part with his favorite toy. He was a goalkeeper,
but he also was into athletics, specifically the
high jump. However, his quick growth to 1.90 meters decided
his future. He started to play basketball and didn’t
stop until the end of a brilliant career. His first coach was
Georgiy Josifovitch Res. In the summer of 1964, while in
Moscow to study, Belov was seen by Aleksandar Kandel,
the coach of Uralmash in the city of Sverdlovsk, and he
called Belov for his team. The promising teenager accepted
and in the 1964-65 season debuted in the Soviet
first division. In the summer of 1966, Belov made his
debut with the USSR national team and in 1967 he was
already a world champion in Uruguay with an average of
4.6 points. He scored a total of 32 points in the tourney,
with a high of 11 against Japan.
In 1968, another key moment in Belov’s life took
place – he signed for CSKA Moscow. For the following
12 years, he would be the best player of the Red Army
team under colonel Alexander Gomelskiy on the bench.
Belov, like other players, was also an officer in the army,
even though his only profession was playing basketball.
In 1969, in Barcelona, he won his first European crown
against Real Madrid. In an unforgettable game that CS-
KA won after double overtime (103-93), with big man
Vladimir Andreev as the main star, getting 37 points
and 11 rebounds. Both Belov and Andreev played the
entire 50 minutes. Belov finished with 19 points and
10 rebounds. The following year CSKA lost the final in
Sarajevo against Ignis Varese 79-74 with 21 points by
Belov. However, in 1971, the Red Army team won the
title back after beating Varese in Antwerp 67-53. Belov
scored 24 points, but he also acted as a coach due to
some problems for Gomelskiy at the Russian border.
101 greats of european basketball
Sergei Belov
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