Russian National Team
His first international tournament was in the 2000 Summer Olympics when the Russian national basketball team finished the games in the 8th place. Later he played at the EuroBasket 2001, where Russia finished 5th among 16 teams. The only time that Kirilenko played in a FIBA World Cup was at the 2002 FIBA World Championship where the Russian team finished 10th out of 16 teams. Kirilenko has also played at 5 EuroBaskets: the EuroBasket 2003, the EuroBasket 2005, the EuroBasket 2007, where he won the gold medal of the competition and was named the MVP of the tournament, and the EuroBasket 2011. With the win in the 2007 EuroBasket, Russia qualified to the 2008 Summer Olympics, where Kirilenko also played for Russia and he was also named Russia's flag bearer for the Opening Ceremony of the games.
In the first game of the 2008 Olympics tournament against Iran, Kirilenko scored 15 points, pulled down 5 rebounds and blocked 3 shots. Against Croatia, he led his team in points scored with 18, and he scored his personal best in the games against Argentina, scoring 23.
Kirilenko won a bronze medal with Russia at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Read more about this topic: Andrei Kirilenko
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“We are all dead men on leave.”
—Eugene Leviné, Russian Jew, friend of Rosa Luxemburg’s lover, Jogiches. quoted in Men in Dark Times, “Rosa Luxemburg: 1871-1919,” sct. 3, Hannah Arendt (1968)
“The cinema is going to form the mind of England. The national conscience, the national ideals and tests of conduct, will be those of the film.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I doubt if men ever made a trade of heroism. In the days of Achilles, even, they delighted in big barns, and perchance in pressed hay, and he who possessed the most valuable team was the best fellow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)