Born in 1959, Iurii Panchenko enjoyed a brilliant career as a player, joining the club of Lokomotiv in his native Kiev before moving to Moscow to play for CSKA with which he won numerous USSR national titles and European Champions Cup trophies. He finished his playing career with clubs in Italy.
With the USSR National Team he was Olympic gold medallist in Moscow 1980 and silver medallist in Seoul 1988, as well as world champion in 1982 and European champion a total of five times.
As a coach, Panchenko began in Italy, but returned to Russia to head several clubs before, most recently, guiding the women's team of Dinamo Moscow to two national titles in 2016 and 2017. He was coach of Dinamo Moscow when they competed last year in the 2017 FIVB Women's Club World Championship in Kobe, where the side finished fifth.
He took charge of Altay VC this year and led the team at the 2018 Asian Women's Club Championship in Kazakhstan, where they ranked fourth after losing 3-2 to China's Jiangsu Zenith Steel in the bronze medal match.