Naum Prokupets

Naum Prokupets was born in 1948 in Basarabeasca

Naum Prokupets was born on March 20, 1948, in Basarabeasca, a small town in Moldova. He is Jewish. His mother Klara Haya was a nurse, and his father Leib was a pastry maker. In 1957 the family moved to Chisinau.

At 17, a canoeing coach noticed him and urged him to move to Moscow to train with the Soviet national team. He trained under Anatoly Grishin. Between 1967 and 1972 he won the Soviet championship 7 times.

At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, he won bronze in the two-man canoe over 1,000 meters with Mikhail Zamotin. In 1971 in Belgrade, he became world champion in the two-man canoe over 10,000 meters with Alexander Vinogradov.

He later held senior posts in sports administration. In 1991, after the Soviet Union broke up, he immigrated to Israel and first worked as a security guard and pool lifeguard. He now works in production at the Flextronics plant in Migdal HaEmek and lives with his family in Nof HaGalil.