On Sunday, Jan. 19, at the USC CSKA guests spent the entire day celebrating the birthday of Army club president Aleksandr Yakovlevich Gomeskiy. There were many different guests – VIPs, variety performers, young basketball players and simple fans. A true celebration was organized for all. At the beginning of the festivities youth basketball teams took the floor, then they were replaced by the variety artists. On the hardwood of the sports arena, where CSKA usually holds its home games, Oleg Gazmanov, Iosif Kobzon, the group X-missiya, Zapreshchennye Barabanchshiki, Shar, Strelki Int. and Doctor Watson held court. Their performances alternated with birthday congratulations from high-ranking officials, friends and acquaintances.
But the best show of all was in store for the crowd at the end of the evening. Veterans of Real Madrid and stars of the U.S.S.R. national team took the floor, a majority of whom played for the gold medal Soviet Union team at the 1988 Olympics.
Such games have become a tradition in recent years. And they haven’t begun to lose their appeal. Sure, the quickness and familiarity with teammates isn’t like that of the current CSKA, but such a class of players truly show how good they still are even at age40 or 50. Interestingly, there were four currently active players playing for the U.S.S.R. team: Sergey Bazarevich, Dmitriy Domani, Andrey Kornev (all for Dinamo) and Evgeniy Pashutin (CSKA).
However, they weren’t the primary players on the floor. The crowed was impressed by Ural-Great coach Valdemaras Chomicius. He let all scorers with 29 points, and another Lithuanian, Rimas Kurtinaitis once again showed that it’s unlikely anyone will pass him in three-point percentage at the USC CSKA — 21 points (15 of them from behind the three-point line).
But the veterans wowed the crowd not only on the floor. It was work watching how the Real players during the time-outs danced along with the cheeleaders, as if they wanted to go out on the floor and dance with them. Naturally the Spaniards could hardly expect a victory on Gomelskiy’s birthday. But they did everything in the their power to entertain the fans and so that they would hope and wait that until the next Real game with Russian, or rather, Soviet, veterans, nothing would change in the basketball world over the next 365 days.
Olympic Champions Seoul 1998 – Real Veterans: 108-98 (29-28, 34-24, 24-27, 21-19)
Olympic Champions Seoul 1998: Chomicius (29 + 7 RB + 3 AS), Kurtinaitis (21 + 4 RB + 3 AS), E.Pashutin (12 + 5 AS + 4 RB), Sukharev (12 + 5 RB + 3 AS), Vetra (7 + 3 RB), Tarakanov (7), Bazarevich (5 + 3 AS + 3 RB), Astanin (5), Enden (4), A.Zharmukhamedov (2 + 4 RB), Kornev (2), Domani (2), Volkov (3 RB), I.Miglinieks (3 RB).
Veterans of Real Madrid: Llorente (22 + 9 AS + 3 ST + 8 RB), Luyk (21 + 5 RB + 3 AS), Diaz (18 + 6 RB + 2 ST), Cabrera (12 + 2 RB + 2 ST + 2 AS), Villalobos (10), Rodriguez (5 + 7 RB), Brabender (3), Ramos (3), Paniagua (2 + 2 RB), Gonzalez (2 + 8 RB), Cabrera, De Benito.
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