Alzhan Zharmukhamedov

Alzhan Musurbekuly Zharmukhamedov was a Kazakh professional basketball player and coach, born on 2 October 1944 and died on 3 December 2022. He is considered to be the first ethnic Kazakh to become an Olympic champion. Although he moved to Almaty hoping to play for the Kazakh SSR national team, he found no support there and went to Moscow, where he played club basketball for CSKA Moscow from 1970 to 1980 and became known worldwide. He served as captain of the senior Soviet Union national team for a long period and won the gold medal at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games. His honours include ten USSR Premier League titles, the 1971 FIBA European Champions Cup, EuroBasket gold medals in 1967, 1971 and 1979, and an Olympic bronze medal in 1976. Late in his career he worked as a player-coach until he was 45. He lived in Moscow and was buried in the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery.