Uļjana Semjonova, one of Latvia’s greatest basketball players, has died at the age of 73 on Thursday, the 8th of January, the Latvian Basketball Association (LBS) announced.
From 1968 to 1987, Semjonova was the leading figure of the Riga TTT team and the Latvian national team. During her club career, she won the European Champions Cup eleven times and also claimed the Liliana Ronchetti Cup. She was a four-time champion of the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR.
Playing for the Soviet Union national team, Semjonova achieved extraordinary success, becoming a two-time Olympic champion, a three-time world champion, and a ten-time European champion.
Her outstanding contribution to basketball was recognized internationally. In 1993, she became the first European woman inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield. In 1999, she was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 2007, she was honored with induction into the FIBA Hall of Fame.
Uļjana Semjonova’s legacy remains a cornerstone of Latvian and international basketball history.
Read also: The notorious Rail Baltica bridge pillar in the Daugava will be put into conservation for several years