Sergei Predybailov

Sergei Viktorovich Predybailov was born on 1 April 1982 in the village of Belaya Glina, Krasnodar Krai, in southern Russia. He began playing beach handball in the Krasnodar region. Viktor Lavrov, the head coach of the Stavropol handball club Viktor, invited him to move to Stavropol, and he settled into the first team almost at once. In a 2005 interview he said that growing confidence in Stavropol took him first into Russia's youth national team and then its junior side.

Predybailov, a left-handed right winger, played for Viktor Stavropol from 2000 until about 2005. In 2004 he won bronze with Russia at the first Beach Handball World Championship and was named to the tournament's all-star team. In 2005 he won gold with Russia's beach handball team at the World Games in Duisburg, Germany.

He then joined Zarya Kaspiya of Astrakhan, later known as Dynamo Astrakhan. With the club he was a silver medallist in the Russian Championship in 2007 and 2008 and won the Russian Cup in 2008. He played for the senior Russian national team and was awarded the title Master of Sport of International Class. He scored more than 1,000 goals in Russian league and cup competition, which made him a member of the honorary Men's Club for the country's most prolific scorers.

After retiring as a player he coached at Dynamo Astrakhan from 2017 to 2022, including a spell as acting head coach in 2022, and he also guided the club during the 2022 to 2023 season. In 2023 his contract ended and he returned to Stavropol to join the coaching staff of the women's Super League club Stavropolye. He later became the club's head coach; Vecherny Stavropol dated the appointment to 2024, while the handball site Bystry Tsentr reported in February 2026 that he had formally taken over from Vitaly Volynchenko in January 2026.

Predybailov had three children; the youngest was born in 2022. His daughter Alexandra also became a handball player. She made her senior debut for Stavropolye in May 2026 and was named to Russia's junior women's national squad for the under-16 world championship in Morocco.

Sergei Predybailov died on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, aged 44, in his 45th year. The Handball Federation of Russia announced his death on 14 October and offered condolences to his family. The Astrakhan regional ministry of physical culture and sport and his former club Viktor also paid tribute, Viktor saying that its whole handball family grieved with his relatives. The cause of death was not made public.

Predybailov belonged to the first generation of Russian beach handball medallists, winning world bronze in 2004 and World Games gold in 2005. On the indoor court he was one of the leading scorers of his era at Zarya Kaspiya, passing 1,000 goals in Russian competition. As a coach he developed players for Dynamo Astrakhan and the women's team Stavropolye, and his daughter Alexandra carried the family name into Russia's junior national team.