Alexander Alexandrovich Belov – The greatest basketball player of all time
1. Alexander Alexandrovich Belov
The greatest basketball
player of all time
Крылова Ирина Алексеевна
Учитель английского языка
г. Санкт-Петербург
ГБОУ СОШ №362
2. Career
Alexander Belov was born on the 9th of November
in 1951 in Leningrad.
When he was 11, he went to sport school “Spartak”,
where his coach was Vladimir Kondrashin.
This great couple set the mood in basketball
in the 70s.
In 1967 Alexander Belov played his first match
for “Spartak Leningrad”. He became the star
player of the team. Even sometimes “Spartak”
was called “The Belov’s team”. He spent 11 seasons
in “Spartak Leningrad”.
3. Highlights
Club Highlights:
• 2 times Champion of the European Cup
Winner's Cup: 1973 and 1975
• Champion of the 1975 USSR League
National Team Highlights:
• Olympic Gold medalist in Munich 1972
• World Champion in Puerto Rico 1974
• Olympic Bronze medalist in Montreal 1976
• Bronze medalist in the 1970 Ljubljana
World Championship
• 2 times European Champion: Italy 1969
and Germany 1971
• Silver medalist in the 1975 European
Championship in Belgrade
• 2 times Gold medalist in the European
Championships for Junior Men: Vigo 1968
and Athens 1970
• Gold medalist in the 1970 World University
Games in Turin
• Silver medalist in the 1973 World
University Games in Moscow
4. Triumph
The first thing that people remember when they hear about Alexander Belov
is the legendary basketball match between USSR and USA
at the Olympic Games 1972 in Munich,
where Alexander scored the winning points on the last seconds of the match.
5. In memory
Unfortunately, Alexander Belov died
at the young age from a very rare
disease - cardiac sarcoma. He was only
26 years old.
He was named one of FIBA’s 50 Greatest
Players in 1991.
He was enshrined in the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007.
Now the annual championship is held in
St.Petersburg in remembrance of
the win over USA, named in honour of our heroes –
“The Vladimir Kondrashin and Alexander Belov Cup”
It is the most unforgettable and important event for the
Russian basketball.
Belov became an idol for many sportsmen after the
grandiose win over USA.
