Under 22 Euro Championship Final: Belarus 96:91 Italy (1994)

Winning the Gold - July 10, 1994

Looking back at the European Championship Final game few things come to mind:

• The Final game is taking place in Slovenian Capital Ljubljana, at the old Tivoli Arena
• The atmosphere around the final game was unusual - it was very nice and quiet... only few local fans showed up because of disappointing performance of the Slovenia National Team
• Belarus blue uniforms did not even have the country's name written on them, no sponsors, no logos - just a player's number
• Thank God we are playing in real Nike sneakers (one of the first pairs we ever had)
• The best part was the medal ceremony - seeing Belarus banner being raised to the music of the Belarus Anthem - priceless!

More about European U22 Championship in this blog: February 2011 posts

Gold Medal from Euro 1994

The Team that made history

Part II. FIBA Under 22 Championship: Gold Medal Journey. Slovenia.

Hello yet again, everybody. As you see from my blog posts, I do write a lot about that 1993-94 journey of Belarus U-22 team because that team was the ultimate underdog one can imagine. It's like a small NCAA school with six walk-ons going to play against All-American schools and winning not once or twice, but legitimately conquering the CHAMPIONSHIP. As I've mentioned before, FIBA Championship was for Under-22 players, but on Belarus squad only 2 players were that age, most was only 19 and me, about to turn 18 in three months. You know, that victory changed all of us once and forever, we realized that if you dream big and work hard everything is truly possible. Like they say, even the wind will blow your way if you are on the right path...