Virgilijus Alekna

Virgilijus Alekna, Bydgoszcz 2007

Virgilijus Alekna ( born February 13, 1972 in Terpeikiai, Lithuanian SSR, USSR) is a Lithuanian discus thrower. He was twice each Olympic champion and world champion.

Life

Since the mid- 1990s Alekna among the world leaders in the discus. Above all, his duels with the German Lars Riedel were spectacular in the past. In the 1990s, especially in the international competitions Riedel had the better end for themselves.

After numerous medal winning Alekna won his first title at the Olympic Summer Games 2000 in Sydney. He could repeat this success at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, but only after some delay, as had won the competition of the Hungarian Róbert Fazekas, but was then disqualified for doping.

At the World Athletics Championships in Paris in 2003, he won his first title. This he defended at the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 2005. But he was taken from the surprisingly strong Estonian Gerd Kanter on the brink of defeat. Alekna led initially expected. With his fourth throw themselves Kanter could then put in the first position, and Alekna it was not until his last throw to win the world title again. He was then elected to the European Athlete of the Year.

A year later, he won the European Championships in Gothenburg in 2006 for the first time the European title. He won again before Gerd Kanter. At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, he reached bronze. After gold in 2004 and bronze in 2008 but four years later he went to London empty-handed. Alekna finished with 67.38 m only fourth place.

His personal best he set in 2000 with 73.88 m, which he slid into second place in the global leaderboard behind world record holder Jürgen Schult.

Alekna is 2,00 m tall and has a contest weight of 130 kg. He worked as a bodyguard for the President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus. In 2012 he ran for the presidency of the National Olympic Committee of Lithuania, but was defeated by the former shooting Olympic champion Daina Gudzinevičiūtė.