Andrey Lavrov

Andrey Ivanovich Lavrov is a Russian former handball goalkeeper, born in Krasnodar in 1962, and a three-time Olympic gold medalist. He is one of very few athletes to have won Olympic gold for three different teams: the Soviet Union in 1988, the Unified Team in 1992 and Russia in 2000. At the age of 42 he won a fourth Olympic medal, bronze with Russia at the 2004 Athens Games, another rare feat for a handball player. He was long the captain of the Russian team, carried the Russian flag at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Games, and was voted Russian handball player of the century in 2001.