Živilė Balčiūnaitė

Živilė Balciunaite ( born April 3, 1979 in Vilnius, Lithuanian SSR, USSR) is a Lithuanian long-distance runner.

1999 and 2005 she became Lithuanian champion in the 5000 m, 2000 and 2004 over 10,000 m. In the hall they had already won the national title over 3,000 m in 1997.

Your marathon career began in 2000 with an eighth place at the Hamburg Marathon. In the same race in 2001 was sixth. In 2002, she was third in the Berlin Half Marathon and 2002, fourth in Hamburg.

The following year she was third respectively at the Los Angeles and the Dublin Marathon and finished at the World Half Marathon Championships in Vilamoura 28th place.

In 2004 she won the Valencia Marathon and was third again in Los Angeles. In a marathon, the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, she came in 14th in the World Half Marathon Championships in New Delhi on 17th position end of the season they turned in fifth at the Tokyo International Women's Marathon with 2:27:28 h a national record.

In 2005 she was runner-up in Los Angeles, set national records in the 10,000 m and half marathon on, finished at the World Half Marathon Championships in Edmonton on the 17th place and was the current national record of 2:25:15 h Second in Tokyo.

In the following season, it was decades in the Boston Marathon, the Marathon of the Fourth European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg and Fifth in Tokyo. In the road race World Championships in Debrecen she came on the 34th.

In 2007, she led a long while Hamburg Marathon, but then fell back to fourth place. In a marathon, the World Athletics Championships in Osaka, she ran on the 33rd, and in Tokyo, she was eighth and qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games.

An eleventh place in the Olympic marathon in Beijing was followed shortly afterwards a tenth place at the Berlin Marathon. In 2009, she came at the World Championships in Berlin in 19th place and finished seventh in the Yokohama marathon.

2010 was followed by an eighth place at the Rome marathon victory in the marathon at the European Championships in Barcelona. It was the second gold medal for Lithuania at European Athletics Championships at all after discus win Virgilijus Alekna 2006.

Three months after her triumph in Barcelona, it was occupied by the Lithuanian association with a protective barrier, as any excessive levels of the hormones testosterone and epitestosterone were found in the votes at the time the urine sample. The World Association IAAA locked her for two years and deprived her of the European Championship.

Personal Best

• 3000 m: 9:15,12 min 18 June, 2005, Tallinn Hall: 9:21,55 min, February 11, 2001 Panevėžys