Ihor Turchyn

Ihor Yevdokymovych Turchyn (16 November 1936 – 7 November 1993) was a Ukrainian handball coach, who headed the Soviet and then Ukrainian national teams from 1973 to 1993, bringing them to three Olympic and five world championship medals.

Biography
In 1959, Turchyn assembled a handball team of teenage girls, which in 1962 became HC Spartak Kyiv. The club became 20-time Soviet champion (1969–1988) and 13-time winner of the EHF Champions League (1970–1973, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1985–1988).

In 1965, he married Zinaida Stolitenko, a trainee 10 years his junior. They had a daughter, Natalia (born 1971), and a son, Mikhail (born 1983). Natalia played handball alongside her mother for Spartak Kyiv, while Mikhail went into basketball. In his last years, Turchyn suffered several heart attacks. He underwent a complex bypass surgery in Norway, and after that coached the Norwegian women's handball team for eight months. He died of a heart attack during an EHF Cup match in Romania in 1993. After his death, his wife took over his coaching positions with Spartak Kyiv and the Ukrainian national team.

Awards

 * Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1976, 1980)
 * Order of the Badge of Honour (1971)
 * Order of Friendship of Peoples (1985)