Virgilijus Alekna

Virgilijus Alekna at 2014 Lithuanian Championships in Athletics
Personal information
Nationality	Lithuanian
Born	(1972-02-13) 13 February 1972 (age 52) Terpeikiai, Lithuania
Height	2.01 m (6 ft 7 in)
Weight	130 kg (287 lb)
Sport
Sport	Athletics
Event	Discus throw
Achievements and titles
Personal best	73.88 m (2000)
Medal record Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 2 0 1 World Championships 2 2 0 European Championships 1 1 1 Continental Cup 4 1 0 IAAF Grand Prix Final 1 1 0 IAAF World Cup 2 0 0 European Throwing Cup 0 1 0 Goodwill Games 0 0 1 Total 12 6 3 Olympic Games 2000 Sydney Discus 2004 Athens Discus 2008 Beijing Discus World Championships 2003 Paris Discus 2005 Helsinki Discus 1997 Athens Discus 2001 Edmonton Discus European Championships 2006 Gothenburg Discus 2002 Munich Discus 1998 Budapest Discus IAAF World Athletics Final 2003 Monte Carlo Discus 2005 Monte Carlo Discus 2006 Stuttgart Discus 2009 Thessaloniki Discus 2007 Stuttgart Discus IAAF Grand Prix Final 2001 Melbourne Discus 1999 Munich Discus IAAF World Cup 1998 Johannesburg Discus 2006 Athens Discus European Throwing Cup 2013 Castellón Discus Goodwill Games 2001 Brisbane Discus
Updated on 12 August 2012.

Virgilijus Alekna (Lithuanian pronunciation: [vʲɪrʲˈɡʲɪlʲɪjʊs ɐlʲɛkˈnɐ]; 13 February 1972) is a Lithuanian former discus thrower and politician. He won medals at the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympics, including two golds.

After retiring from athletics, Alekna was elected to the national parliament, the Seimas, in 2016.^{[citation needed]}

He has 3 children - Martynas Alekna, Mykolas Alekna and Gabrielė Aleknaite.^{[citation needed]}

Athletics career

Alekna has won two gold medals in the Summer Olympics in the discus throw, the first was in 2000 and the second in 2004. He also won the bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. In 2007, he was appointed as UNESCO Champion for Sport. His personal record as well as the Lithuanian record is 73.88 m (242 ft 4+1⁄2 in), surpassed only by the world record (74.08 metres).

Alekna was awarded the title of the Athlete of the Year for 2000 by Track and Field News. He was also awarded the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas by the government of Lithuania. He became the Lithuanian Sportsman of the Year 4 times (2000, 2004, 2005, and 2006). Since 1995 Alekna has served as a bodyguard of the Lithuanian Prime Minister.

He is married to former long jumper Kristina Sablovskytė-Aleknienė and has two sons named Martynas and Mykolas, also discus throwers.

At a height of 2.02 m (6 ft 7+1⁄2 in), Alekna has an unusually long armspan, measured 2.24 m (7 ft 4 in), which is helpful in discus throwing. He can make fingerprints on windows of two opposite sides of a bus simultaneously.^[2]

During the 2007 World Championship Virgilijus Alekna competed with an injury. Having sustained the injury on 20 August, he competed in the World Championship's qualification on 28 August^[3] and, as a result, suffered a defeat, which broke his 37 victories in a row over the past two years.^[3] In 2017 Alekna was awarded the European Athletics Lifetime Achievement award.^[4][5]

Political career

In May 2016, Alekna announced he would participate in the elections to the Seimas the following October on the electoral list of the opposition Liberal Movement, without joining the party.^[6] He lost the run-off in Naujamiestis single-member constituency, but was elected to the Twelfth Seimas through the electoral list of the party, where he was rated second.^[7]