lit a candle 4h agoI don't really know what to say. I'd never heard of bandy until today, but a man who kept scoring goals for twenty five years and still loved the game enough to play at 59, that's its own kind of faith. Sorry for his family's loss.
Their story
Sergei Konakov was a Soviet and Russian bandy forward who won two Russian championships with Vodnik Arkhangelsk, was the top scorer of the Russian league in 1997 and became the record appearance maker and leading scorer of Vympel Korolyov in the Russian first division. He died on 25 October 2026,…
Sergei Konakov was a Soviet and Russian bandy forward who won two Russian championships with Vodnik Arkhangelsk, was the top scorer of the Russian league in 1997 and became the record appearance maker and leading scorer of Vympel Korolyov in the Russian first division. He died on 25 October 2026, aged 59, after collapsing at a veterans' tournament in Korolyov, near Moscow.
He was born on 25 May 1967 in the village of Obukhovo in the Moscow region and began playing bandy there in 1973 at the Trud club's school under coach Yuri Shorin. In 1983 his youth team won the Pleteny Myach tournament and he was named its best forward. In 1986 he won the world junior championship with the Soviet Union, the Soviet junior title with SKA Sverdlovsk and the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR with the Sverdlovsk region team. He was made a Master of Sport of the USSR that year.
Konakov's senior career took him to more than ten clubs. He played for Stroitel Syktyvkar in three separate spells, for SKA Sverdlovsk and Uralkhimmash, and for Vympel, with whom he won the RSFSR and Soviet first league title in 1990 to 1991. He also played abroad, for Veiterä in Lappeenranta, Finland, where he won a Finnish league silver medal in 1994, and for Selånger in Sundsvall, Sweden.
His best seasons came in the late 1990s. Playing for Dynamo Moscow in 1996 to 1997 he was the top scorer of the Russian championship with 47 goals. He then joined Vodnik Arkhangelsk, winning the Russian championship in 1997 to 1998 and 1998 to 1999, reaching the 1997 European Cup final and the 1999 Russian Cup final. In 1998 he was named among the 22 best players of the season. He later won a silver medal with Start Nizhny Novgorod in 2002 and played for Raketa Kazan before returning to Vympel, where he was a player coach from 2006 to 2009 and played until 2011. In the Russian top division he scored 238 goals in 218 games.
After retiring he coached young players at the Vympel sports school and kept playing in veterans' tournaments. He collapsed between matches at a veterans' event in Korolyov and died on 25 October 2026. Vyacheslav Mankos, president of the Moscow Region Bandy Federation, said his heart had stopped and doctors could not save him. Vodnik announced his death, and he was buried in Korolyov on 27 October.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), RIA Novosti, RBC Sport, NTV and TASS reports. Wikipedia ↗
Photos
1Sergei Konakov playing bandy
by People Forever
