The great basketball and water polo champion Cesare Rubini died last night because of complications from pneumonia.

Cesare Rubini was born in Trieste, Italy, on November 2, 1923. In 1941, after graduating from high school, he starts playing basketball for Olimpia Milano, but at the same time he also plays water polo.

In 1946, Rubin won the silver medal with the Italian national football at European Championships in Geneva. In 1947 he won the gold medal with the Italian national team water polo at European Championships in Monte Carlo.

In 1948 Cesare Rubini privileges water polo and with the national team he wins a gold medal at the Olympic Games in London. In 1952 he wins the bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1954 and wins another bronze medal at the European Championships in Turin.

In the ’50s Cesare Rubini is still very active in basketball by winning five consecutive Italian titles with Olimpia Milano, where he is a player and the coach at the same time.

In 1957 Rubini ends his career as a player but he keeps on being a coach and wins more Italian titles but also the European Champions Cup in 1966 and the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971 and 1972, marking the first international success of Italian basketball.

In 1976 Cesare Rubini becomes a manager in the Italian Basketball Federation participating in that capacity at key moments such as the Italian national team win of the silver medal at the 1970 Moscow Olympic Games, the gold medal at the European Championships in Nantes in 1983, the silver medal at the the European Championships in Rome in 1991 and the bronze medal at the European Championships in Stuttgart in 1985.

In 1994 Cesare Rubini was elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the first Italian to receive this honor. In 2000 he was also elected into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He’s the only sportsman to be in the Hall of Fame in two different sports.

With the death of Cesare Rubini we lose one of the greatest men in Italian sports: if basketball in Italy could develop it’s also a credit to his passion and his skills.