Yury Taranukhin

Yury Taranukhin worked for his local sports school in Primorsky District, Saint Petersburg, first as a children’s coach, before eventually becoming a deputy head teacher. This was followed with a successful career as a handball referee. He and Grigorij Güterman officiated at the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Olympics in both the men’s and women’s tournaments. Taranukhin also officiated at a dozen editions of the World Championships, with the Handball Federation of Russia (HFR) naming him as the best handball referee of the 20th century. In 2000 he was appointed as the head of the Refereeing Commission of the HFR, and he also continued to work as a technical delegate for matches. Several of Taranukhin’s students also became international handball judges including Viktoriya Alpaidze, Tatyana Berezkina, and Viktor Poladenko.