Many Ukrainian athletes are heeding the call of the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to arm themselves and take to the streets to defend Ukraine from the invasion it is suffering from the Russia led by Vladimir Putin. Boxers like Klitschko or Lomachenko and tennis players like Stajovski are some examples of adults who have decided to join the national army to fight in the streets. One of them is the ex-basketball player Sasha Vólkov, who has been photographed in a car carrying a weapon to defend his country.. Jordi Villacampa, one of Vólkov’s rivals in European basketball in the 1980s and 1990s, has been one of those who has reacted to seeing one of the great centers of the continent in such an extreme situation during the aforementioned decades.
With Aleksandr Anatólievich Vólkov, his full birth name, we speak of a pioneer in the field of basketball. A 2.08-meter pivot from the Soviet Omsk who is now on Russian soil, he was one of the first Europeans to make the leap to the NBA. His run up to the US was split between Kiev and Moscow, between Budivelnik and CSKA. In 1989 he made the jump to Atlanta to play for the Hawks, with whom he spent three years. Later he was in the Greek super teams, Panathinaikos and Olympiacos, and in Italy with Reggio Calabria.
Volkov has made his first steps both in politics and in managing the resources of his sport. He spent a year, from 1999 to 2000, as Ukraine’s minister in this field. As of 2007 he took charge of the national basketball federation.
One of Sasha Vólkov’s great successes was the Olympic gold achieved in the Seoul ’88 Games with the USSR, part of which he is now fighting. In the final they beat Yugoslavia 76-63 in a legendary team that he shared with other greats such as Arvydas Sabonis, the undisputed leader, Rimas Kurtinaitis and Sarunas Marciulionis. Vólkov, despite not winning any European Cup, was chosen by FIBA as one of the 50 best in history when that list was drawn up in 1991.