Talant Dujshebaev

Talant Mushanbetovich Dujshebaev (Russian: Талант Мушанбетович Дуйшебаев; born 2 June 1968) is a former handball player, and current coach, who serves as the head coach for Vive Kielce. Dujshebaev is considered by many to be one of the greatest handball coaches of his generation. He successively played for 4 national teams in his playing career: First for the Soviet Union, then the Unified Team, then Russia and finally Spain. His most usual demarcation as a player was centre backcourt. After initially having success with BM Ciudad Real as a coach, he has been coaching Kielce for nearly a decade now.

Early life and career

He was born in Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic in the former Soviet Union, and started his playing career in CSKA Moscow. He started playing handball late; at the age of 14. Before that he practiced swimming. He participated on the 1992 Olympic Games as a member of the Unified Team and won the gold medal. He also became the top scorer of the games with 47 goals and was elected into the dream team of the tournament. One year later he participated on the 1993 World Championships as a member of the Russian team and won the gold medal again.

After the 1992 Summer Olympics he signed for Teka Cantabria and a few years later he received the Spanish citizenship. Afterwards he played in the Spain men's national handball team for nearly a decade, gaining two Olympic bronze medals in 1996 and 2000, and silver and bronze medals on the European championships. He also gained several individual recognitions in the world championships, like being elected as the best player of the tournament in 1997, but he failed to win any medals with the Spanish team, which finished 4th in both 1999 and 2003. Ironically when Spain finally won the world championship in 2005, Dujshebaev was no longer the member of the squad.