during the
22nd Olympics opening ceremony in
Moscow, 1980|leftAt the age of twenty, Belov made his debut in the
USSR League, with the team of
Uralmash Sverdlovsk, where he played from 1964 to 1967. He then played with
CSKA Moscow for twelve years. With CSKA, he won the USSR League championship eleven times (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980), the
USSR Cup twice (1972, 1973), and the
EuroLeague twice, in 1969 and 1971. As a member of the senior
Soviet Union national basketball team, for nearly fourteen years (1967–1980), Belov helped them win a
Summer Olympic Games gold medal in
1972, and three bronze medals in
1968,
1976, and
1980. He also helped them to become the
FIBA World Cup champions in
1967 and
1974, and the
EuroBasket champions in
1967,
1969,
1971, and
1979. He also won the
Summer Universiade, in
1970, as well. In
the gold medal game of the
1972 Summer Olympics, Belov scored 20 points against the
United States national basketball team, as the Soviet Union
controversially defeated the USA, by a score of 51–50, to win the gold. ==Later life==