Lithuanian internet gates

Lithuania's debut in the Olympics took place in 1924 in Paris. It was represented by a football team and two cyclists.

It was in Helsinki Olympic Games in 1952 that Lithuania won its first medals: Steponas Butautas, Justinas Lagunavičius and Kazys Petkevičius took home silver in basketball. However, at that time Lithuania was under occupation, therefore these three winners happened to be members of the USSR team. As a matter of fact, the second coach of the USSR team Vytautas Kulikauskas was also Lithuanian, just like Stanislovas Stonkus, who was taken as a reserve player.

The first Lithuanian to have become an Olympic champion was a boxer Danas Pozniakas: this happened in Mexico, 1968;

As members of the USSR team, Lithuanian athletes participated in different Olympic Games for about five decades (from Helsinki 1952 to Seoul 1988) and won 25 gold, 19 silver and 16 bronze medals.

Since the restoration of independence in 1990, Lithuania participated in four summer and four winter Olympic Games. Lithuanian athletes were successful in all the summer Olympic Games, winning a total of 44 medals, including four gold, two silver and 38 bronze medals. Lithuanian basketball team were the third in three successive Olympic Games, while in 2004 they were just an inch from the award podium.

Throughout the history of Lithuanian athlete participation at Olympic Games, the following four athletes won the title of the Olympic champion twice: Angelė Rupšienė in basketball, Aldona Česaitytė-Nenėnienė in handball, Gintautas Umaras in cycling and Virgilijus Alekna in discus, athletics.

 

Lithuania is delegating 71 athletes to the Beijing Olympic Games. It seems to be the best Lithuania’s Olympic team ever.

 

Our tricolour flag will be carried during the opening ceremony by our famous basketballer Šarūnas Jasikevičius.

Fifty days to Beijing Summer Olympics, the National Olympic Committee (LNOC) President Artūras Poviliūnas said: “We have never had such good potential over the history of the LNOC, therefore a much higher number of medals compared to previous Olympics is highly probable.This time we hope best achievements in canoe/kayak events, boxing, yachting, cycling, Greco-Roman wrestling, obviously basketball, track-and-field events, weight-lifting and pentathlon. We have our eyes set on our Olympic hopefuls getting among top eight”.