The acting coach of Russia’s women’s handball team is likely to be offered the job on a permanent basis after recent good results, a source at the Russian Handball Federation told R-Sport on Tuesday.

Evgeny Trefilov was fired after a poor showing at the London Olympics, and his temporary replacement Vitaly Krokhin led the team to a surprise second place at the first-ever Golden League meeting at the weekend.

“Krokhin obviously has the biggest chance,” the source said.

As well as Krokhin, eight other candidates, six of them foreign, have applied for the job, including former Team GB consultant Allan Lund, the federation said last week.

The new coach may be picked at a scheduled meeting of the federation’s executive committee Wednesday.

Russia is a four-time world champion and won silver at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.