• Photo: Mindaugas Kulbis

As we wrote last issue, the optimistic mathematician got it right, and Žalgiris was the sole Lithuanian team to make it to the Final 16 of Euroleague.

With just three wins from 10 games, Žalgiris was in fact able to secure third position in Group G. The first task for the team in green was getting everyone working together.

Romanov had some presents for new coach Butautas in the way of young point guard Capin and forward Delas to add to the squad, and with their final two wins in the first round it was the return on investment he was looking for.

The Final 16 is a big ask for the inexperienced Žalgiris, but they performed admirably well in their first encounter with Asseco Prokom. The final 24 point margin didn’t paint an accurate picture as Žalgiris were in the competition most of the way.

Next round however was at home, and every visiting team treats ‘The Green Hell’ with respect, especially Moscow CSKA, who have a great history of classic encounters going back to the Soviet years.

Žalgiris had also defeated CSKA recently in the Unified League and must have felt in with a good chance to beat one of the Euroleague title favourites on their home turf.

And that’s how it was. A 10 point lead at half time was testament to the defence, rebounding and outside shooting of Žalgiris, still without league leading rebounder Travis Watson.

But every coach will tell you that a halftime lead can be curse that rejuvenates the opposition, and CSKA came out firing. Šiškauskas, with only one point in the first half, found his range and showed why he was joint MVP last round.

Žalgiris hung on and were still a chance in the last quarter, but the class of CSKA shone through. There was no better illustration of the difference between the two teams than when Capin took some early shots and missed a layup, while CSKA in the same position moved the ball around, found the hot hand and steadily moved into a comfortable position to ensure the win well before regulation.

It wasn’t so much bad play on the part of Žalgiris or Capin as much as a demonstration of where these two teams are at. CSKA know and trust each other and share the load, while at Žalgiris they’re still finding their feet.

The main thing Žalgiris proved on the night is that they will have some bearing on final make-up of the group.

Lietuvos Rytas

Rytas on the other hand was on holidays. After missing out on the Final 16 Kurtinaitis ordered his charges to take a holiday, preferably where there was some sun.

Rytas also sold Bojan Popovic to Efes Pilsen, swapped Brazdauskis for Valančiūnas from Perlas, brought back Kenan Bajramovic and included Igor Milosovic to share point guard duties with Ginevičius.

Vainauskas promised a renewed effort for the rest of the year, and the focus remains very much on defending their titles and working to next year.

• Photo: Tomas Tumalovčius, reporteris.com

Latvians took the first four places at this year’s Halls Winter Rally held in Utena. Janis Vorobjovas and Guntaras Zicanas completed the 12 section course, with a com-bined length of 105.6 kilometres, in one hour, three minutes 5.2 seconds, at an average speed of 99.12 kph.

Rokas Lipeika and his daughter Inga were the best placed Lithua-nian team coming in fifth in a field of 43. This year was the 16th running of the Winter Rally.

Alekna second best of the last decade

• Photo: Mindaugas Kulbis

Track and Field, the influential sporting magazine widely regarded as the Bible of Sport, selected its top ten athletes of the last decade in their March issue.

The editors based their choice on overall impact and stressed quality over quantity in athletic performance.

Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, a distance runner was the number one choice, but of most interest to us was second place which went to Virgilijus Alekna, our discus thrower who has done us proud as an athlete and an ambassador to Lithuania.

Six Lithuanian athletes to participate in Vancouver Winter Olympics

Vilnius, Jan 21 (ELTA) - Six Lithuanian athletes will represent Lithuania in the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010. This will be the smallest our delegation since Albertville Winter Olympic Games in 1992.

The country’s Olympic team was approved at the sitting of the Executive Committee of the Lithuanian National Olympic Committee (LTOK) on Thursday.

25 year old biathlete Diana Rasimovičiūtė, 4 skiers - 25 year old Irina Terentjeva, 24 year old Aleksejus Novoselskis, 23 year old Mantas Strolia and 20 year old Modestas Vaičiulis, along with 24 year old alpine skier Vitalijus Rumiancevas will represent Lithuania in Vancouver.

LTOK President Artūras Poviliūnas will head the delegation; Olympic Champion Vida Vencienė will be Chief of Mission. Terentjeva, who will participate in the Olympic Games for the third time, will carry the flag at the opening parade. The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXI Olympic Winter Games, will be held on 12 – 28 February 2010 in Vancouver.

Lietuvos Rytas fell three points short of reaching the Final 16 in Euroleague on Wednesday night.

Faced with the daunting task of having to defeat group second favourites Unicaja on their home court, a full house packed Siemens Arena in the hope of cheering their boys to victory. In the end a valiant effort was not enough to get the team from Lithuania’s capital into the next round of Euroleague.

Coach Kurtinaitis tried a revamped starting line-up of Ginevičius, Borovnjak, Bjelica, Gecevičius and Jomantas in the hope of getting the drop on the Spaniards and establishing an early lead.

As it turned out the opposite ensued, but both teams took turns at winning quarters, and Rytas took the lead late in the final quarter.

Bjelica enjoyed the elevation to starting centre and collected 18 points and 7 rebounds, and Gecevičius proved his same reliable self in posting 19 and hitting shots when most needed. Babrauskas chipped in with 12, and Ginevičius added 9.

Still, it was a tired looking Rytas team that never quite hit its straps on the night. They managed to stay in the running with characteristic determination but as Unicaja coach Aito Garcia  Reneses said in the post-match press conference, in tight games luck plays a part, and in the last few plays the good lady was with the visitors.

Kurtinaitis said that his charges still lacked maturity, individual skills and were suffering from some fatigue.

Down the A1 in Kaunas it seems the tide has turned, and while last issue I said that it was only the most optimistic mathematician that would give them a chance of making the next round, it seems that mathematicians are now looking through their glasses very much half full.

A new coach and a couple of new players signed in the last week now have Žalgiris in with a show. They need an away win, something which has eluded them for a few seasons, but they have a realistic chance.

Travis Watson is inured and his rebounding prowess will be sorely missed. Fenerbahce Ulker will probably try to attack through the middle to expose this weakness, but with both teams desperate to win anything is possible. Then there is Marcus Brown on the wing, and if his shots are dropping then the improbable could become fact and the unlikely a reality.

Even I’ll be cheering for our Kaunas cousins in the hope of getting at least one Lithuanian team into the Final 16.

Kemzūra appoints coaching staff

Kęstutis Kemzūra has named his team of assistants that will be coaching the Lithuanian National Basketball Team. Aiding Kemzūra in the gym and on the sidelines will be Valdemaras Chomičius, Robertas Kuncaitis and Donaldas Kairys.

Kairys makes a return to the coaching staff after also working with Ramūnas Butautas, while Chomičius and Kuncaitis return to national team duties after a break.

“I chose these people because I value their professional skills. The basic criteria in choosing my assistants was professionalism. Apart from that, I have worked with them before, have had basketball dealings with them, and our basketball philosophies overlap. Each trainer will be assigned specific areas of activity, but we will work together as a team and there will be much debate,” Kemzūra said.

The Lithuanian team will also have a new physical fitness trainer, Evaldas Kondratavičius. Evaldas has worked with junior Lithuanian national teams before and with Dynamo Moscow over the past few years.

Kemzūra added that he might even include more new faces in the coaching and administrative staff if they see the necessity in the future.

Ramūnas Butautas takes the helm at Žalgiris

Speculation about the future of Žalgiris coach Gintaras Krapikas finally came to an end when Ramūnas Butautas was appointed head coach of Žalgiris in December. Krapikas put in his resignation after their loss to Barcelona.

Butautas had the team off to a good start with a win against Cibona in Euroleague last week.

Žalgiris also announced the signing of Mario Delas, a Croatian junior with great perspective, so much so that the team in green have signed him to a three and a half year contract. Mario will meet his team mates in Frankfurt for the first time on their way to Turkey to play against Fenerbahce Ulker.

Another new player, Aleksandr Capin a Slovenian national, has inked a contract until the summer of 2012.

Simona Krupeckaitė Awarded

Simona Krupeckaitė was voted Best Track Cyclist of 2009 by the readers of velodrome.org.uk

She received 12,582 votes, and took the title easily over second placed Australian Anna Myers who had 1470 votes from the 27,000 readers of velodrome.org.uk

This award comes after Krupeckaitė was awarded the best Lithuanian Sportsperson of 2009, which was organised by the Lithuanian National Olympic Committee, Olifeja and the Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Rytas. The award included a prize of LTL50,000 and a sculpture.

Krupeckaitė gathered 78,197 votes, and second was Giedrius Titenis, a swimmer, with 55,350 votes. Third was Virgilijus Alekna, discus, with 49,257 votes.

Lietuvos Rytas basketball team was voted the best team of 2009.

LIETUVOS RYTAS EVENED the mid-season honours as they won their home game against Žalgiris on 12 December.

In a game very much of two halves, the visitors took a seven point first half lead into the locker room, leaving Rytas fans scratching their heads as to how the team might make some sort of come-back, even if only to add a bit of respectability to their performance in front of their home crowd. As it turned out they didn’t have to wait long, and they got more than respectability, they got the all-important ‘W’ as well.

Baynes came out dunking, and within four minutes the home team was a point up, and as other team-mates joined in, it was Rytas up by seven of their own at 30 minutes. Rytas went on to win by 17, and hoped the win would give them momentum going into Wednesday night’s meeting with Olympiacos.

Kurtinaitis praised the character of his team and said they were prepared to go the distance, while Žalgiris sprinted out of the gate, and ran out of puff after beating CSKA Moscow and just going down to Montepaschi Siena in the same week.

Žalgiris still has a mathematical chance of making the round of 16 in Euroleague, but even the most optimistic of mathematicians wouldn’t be holding out much hope at the moment.

Rytas v Olympiacos

Lietuvos Rytas went on to host Olympiacos in an 8th round encounter that was important for both teams - Rytas to secure a berth in the next round, and for Olympiacos to put their suprise defeat against Partizan behind them.

Vilnius fans filled their house as they also welcomed Linas Kleiza back to town, where he is more used to playing in green and gold for the Lithuanian National Team, and being cheered instead of jeered.

Rytas started well, and in a scrappy first quarter took a nine point lead to the first break. The much hoped for return to form of the big boys didn’t eventuate, and Bjelica took the brunt of the workload inside. Despite giving up a lot of size, Rytas did well to end the night even in rebounds with their much taller opponents.

Olympiacos managed to regroup after the first stanza and took their turn in dominating the next quarter. Kleiza was consistent beyond the arc, hitting three from five on the night.

The next two quarters followed the same script, with Rytas winning the third by three and Olympiacos taking the fourth by four - overtime - but the cost was heavy, as both Baynes and Bjelica had fouled out in regulation.

In the extra five minutes Olympiacos coach Giannakis instructed his charges to play through the middle, and with an unsportsmanlike foul called on the first play, the visitors took full advantage dropping both free throws and scoring from the possession to take the wind out of the full house and shore up an away win.

In the round-up Kurtinaitis said his players performed well against one of the best clubs in Europe, and while they had shown good grit and character, it also showed them how much more work they had to do before they can really match it with the best.

Sure this is Lithuania, but there has been a lot happening in the basketball world over the last few weeks. Next issue will get back to covering a broader range of sporting events, but for now it’s all basketball.

Basketballers of the Year

Linas Kleiza was voted the best male Lithuanian basketball player of 2009, while Gintarė Petronytė took the honours for the women.

A total of 14,057 Lithuanian basketball fans voted in the poll, with Petronytė getting 3071 votes and Kleiza 4188 . Both players are plying their trade in the Greek leagues this year.

Kleiza replaces Ramūnas Šiškauskas as Lithuania’s number one player, and this year is the first time there have been separate awards for male and female players.

Kleiza also announced that he had establishment a foundation to support troubled and disadvantaged Lithuanian youth in providing them all with an equal chance to succeed in sport.

FIBA talks Turkey

After an agonising wait, the good news finally filtered through on Saturday 12 December that Lithuania indeed has a ticket to Turkey to contest the 2010 World Basketball Championships.

On Tuesday the group draw was held, and Lithuania is joined in Group D by Spain, France, Canada, New Zealand and Lebanon. While drawing one of the tournament favourites in their first round, even Kęstutis Kemzūra, the Lithuanian National Team Coach said that it was not too bad at all, and that all the groups were fairly even, with a tournament favourite in each.

Spain is favourite in Group D he added, but reminded us that Lithuania defeated the Spaniards in Vilnius before the European Championships earlier this year.

Group A consists of Argentina, Serbia, Australia, Germany, Angola and Jordan. Group B – USA, Slovenia, Brazil, Croatia, Iran and Tunisia. Group C – Greece, Turkey, Puerto Rico, Russia, China and Ivory Coast.

Expensive Turkey Ticket

In the end five of the Lithuanian national team sponsors got together to come up with the required half million euros to buy Lithuania entry into the World Championships, and there is much disquiet among basketball fans and officials that it has come down to a matter of money. Nigeria was especially upset that they simply did not have the financial resources to compete with Western countries in earning, or rather buying a ticket to Turkey.

FIBA claims that the funds will be used to promote basketball, but many remain unhappy about this method of selling the spots in the World Championship, though Mindaugas Balčiūnas, General Secretary of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation said that the testimony of Lithuanian fans, politicians, and their own official presence in Turkey for the final decision were also important contributing factors.

But no doubt the controversy will be forgotten by the time the Championships come around, and we all get down to the serious business of returning Lithuania to its rightful place on the world stage.

The basketball season is now in full swing as Euroleague hits the halfway mark in the home and away series, and local bragging rights were decided in the first regular season local derby for the year.

Lithuania’s powerhouse teams met on Žalgiris’ home court, a venue many opposition teams have nicknamed The Green Hell, and it was the home team that took the honours. Žalgiris took control of the contest in the second quarter and managed to maintain a double digit lead for almost the rest of the game.

Almost was the operative word though, and in the dying minutes Rytas managed to claw back from a 13 point deficit at the final change, to make the final margin three points with a 67:64 scoreline.

Coach Kurtinaitis was surprisingly upbeat after the game, saying he was reasonably satisfied with the three point loss, explaining that he believed they could better that advantage on their own home court in order to earn the decisive first home game in the final series.

He suspected that Baynes might have been somewhat overawed by the partisan Žalgiris crowd, who despite the flu epidemic turned out in large numbers, and that Popovich was also well below his best.

He said their game plan was to try to keep with their team leaders like Brown and Šalenga, but make sure that none of Žalgiris secondary players made any major contributions. Essentially that was the problem, with Pocius coming off the bench for 17.

Krapikas was surprised to be told of Kurtinaitis’ response. A win is a win he said, and he was thankful for the victory. He was especially pleased by the total effort of his team whose overall performance was the foundation for the win.

He was also in greater need of the win. While Žalgiris remains undefeated in the local LKL and Baltic leagues, and with just the one loss in the VTB after a recent win against Azomash where Marcus Brown hit an incredible 37 points with 5/9 two pointers and 7/11 from beyond the arc, the team in green’s problems stem from Euroleague.

With just the one win at the halfway stage, again they played well against Fenerbahce Ulker to go down by only six points, but at one and four they are making it tough to get into the next round. Some good news for the team from Kaunas for a change though was that Asvel Basket defeated Cibona Zagreb, so now three teams are tied on 1 – 4 in Group A, meaning that these three teams are basically playing for the last position to advance to the Final 16.

Lietuvos Rytas go forward having done everything asked of them. The formula in Euroleague is to defend your homecourt and then try to steal an away win whenever possible, and this is exactly how they managed to be sitting at 3 – 2. The one bit of bad news for Rytas was that Partizan Belgrade got up to beat Olympiacos in a major upset, bringing them back into calculations to take them into the Final 16.

Rytas has a lot of work to do with a home game against Olympiacos after their humbling 24 point loss in Greece, and in the last game they host Unicaja, again a daunting ask. With away fixtures against Efes Pilsen and Partisan there is still quite a bit of work for the boys in red and black (when their not wearing white of course).

Then there is a repeat of the civil conflict on 12 December, when this time Rytas hosts Žalgiris in a Baltic league encounter that should keep fans happy until Christmas.

Photo Mindaugas Kulbis

Ramūnas Vyšniauskas was not allowed to enter the World Weightlifting Championships held in South Korea in November.

Despite 11 months of intense preparation and proclaiming his form to be probably the best in his career, three days before being due to start in the up to 105 kg class, he was stricken with the flu and unable to get out of bed.

Still intent on taking his place in the competition he showed up on the day of competition, but the organisers saw his condition, and on measuring his temperature did not allow him to compete. In fact they didn’t even let him inside the competition hall in fear of him infecting other competitors.

Ramūnas was understandably upset, and the Lithuanian Weightlifting Federation felt that he was a good chance for the gold, and was lifting enough for the bronze medal in training.

Junior Judo Success

Lithuanian juniors brought home two medals from the European Under 23 Judo Championships held in Turkey recently.

Karolis Bauža took a gold medal in the up to 90 kg class from 26 competitors, and Raimonda Gedutytė brought back a bronze in the up to 78 kg class in a field of 12.

Savickas lifts new record

Žydrūnas Savickas bettered his own world record in Kaunas recently lifting 212.5 kg in the Log Lift in becoming the current European Champion Strongman.

Žydrūnas has been a perennial winner in strongman competitions around the world over the last 10 years.

Vidas Blekaitis took third place in the same event.

LBBF News

Elsewhere in the basketball world attention is still turned towards the allocation of wildcards for next year’s World Championships. The announcement date remains 13 December and local speculation has varied from optimistic to none, with a few conspiracy theories thrown in for good measure.

The Lithuanian nation awaits news as to whether the national team will play in the world championships. Essentially, we’ll only know on the day, so keep an eye on the next issue.
On 15 December the Lithuanian Basketball Federation will announce the best player for 2009.
A few days later the committee will meet to start the process of choosing the new coach for the Lithuanian National Women’s Team.

Lietuvos Rytas began the 2009-2010 season with an incredible burden – how to defend the five titles it was holding. Five titles in any season is hard enough, but when you are given a reduced budget, lose the core of your starting five and then have to step up a grade to Euroleague, well for most teams that would seem impossible.

Chuck Eidson, Marijonas Petravičius and Mindaugas Lukauskis were offered contracts elsewhere that the Vilnius team couldn’t match, and once again the Rytas scouts were looking for good value recruits that coach Kurtinaitis (pictured above with Gecevičius) could mould into an effective unit. They added the underperforming Bojan Popovic, the untried Aron Baynes and Dejan Borovnjak, who joined Gecevičius, Jomantas, Zavackas, Milko Bjelica, who inked the plus one on his contract, and new captain Babrauskas in taking on the best that Europe has to offer.

Kurtinaitis banked on getting an early start. While most pundits agree that Euroleague starts in earnest in the new year, the coach pushed his boys hard early, hoping to pick up the early wins to get most of the way to the next round before the rest of the teams had hit their straps. It was a tough ask, as the coach himself had national team duties, and not all of the players arrived at camp at the same time.

An added complicating factor is that the warm-up games in the local leagues are hardly the tough preparation an elite team needs to prepare for Euroleague. Kurtinaitis pushed his players, but he admitted that he was working on particular aspects of offence and defence rather than their full game plan.

Rytas enjoys a healthy home-court advantage, and they faced their first test against European powerhouse Efes Pilsen. The Turkish champs boast names such as Santiago and Nachbar, but Rytas was able to use their advanced conditioning and sixth player – the rowdy home crowd – to take a seven point win against the favourites.

Next was a meeting with Euroleague newcomer Entente Orleanaise, and the bonus away win was appreciated, but frankly expected. Olympiacos brought them back down to earth to the tune of 24 before another home court encounter with Partizan.

Again Kurtinaitis put pressure on his charges naming the game a must-win encounter, and to their credit his troops were able to procure the win with a surprising 22 point margin, putting the team from the capital at a solid 3-1 coming to the end of the first round.

Locally Rytas has remained undefeated in the LKL and BBL, though an overtime win against VEF Riga was a close call, as well as costing them the services of Vidas Ginevičius who is out for an extended period with a broken bone in his hand.

The local derby is scheduled for 21 November when the trip to Kaunas will decide local bragging rights.

Interest now turns to the services of Arvydas Macijauskas who lost his court case and should be looking for a team. I’m sure both Rytas and Žalgiris have his number.

Žalgiris draws the short straw

After narrowly avoiding bankruptcy last year, saved by a Romanov buy-out, the team of green started the season well, taking back the first title they lost to Rytas last year - The BBL Cup.
The celebrations were short-lived however, as they drew Group A with Montepaschi, Barcelona and Fenerbahce Ulker in Euroleague.

Compounding their problems has been their tendency to play well against good teams, but less so against the likes of Cibona who they lost to recently. Along with Asvel it is expected that these three teams will battle in their group for a place in the final 16.

The loss of Jonas Mačiulis and Paulius Jankūnas took a lot out of the team, but the return of Marcus Brown, and the addition of Travis Watson (pictured above) and Begic to the remaining Kalnietis and new captain Šalenga gives them a strong starting five.

Žalgiris has also opted to play in the VTB United League which gives them a bit more competition playing against stronger opposition the likes of CSKA, Khimki and Unics.

The Lithuanian National Football Team took a consolation win against group leaders Serbia to end their World Cup qualifying campaign. Under the sodden skies of Marijampolė (pictured) the Lithuanians used the home advantage to end the 10 game series just as they started – with a win.

National hopes were running high last year when Lithuania overcame Romania 3 – 0 in what many regarded as an historic win. It was followed by a 2 – 0 defeat of Austria in Marijampolė, and little Lithuania found itself equal leaders in Group 7.

A loss to Serbia was followed by a win against the Faroe Islands, but then four losses in row put an end to the dreams of a ticket to South Africa in 2010.

Still, a credible fourth place in a group that included France, Serbia, Austria and Romania was some small consolation for a country that had its appetite for football well nourished during the optimistic early rounds, but ended with speculation about coach José Couceiro, whose only guarantee is that the current contract will be honoured.

Meanwhile, the local league wrapped up their season on 13 November with Panevėžys Ekranas taking the honours over Vilnius Vėtra, and Marius Stankevičius chosen as Lithuania’s best player for the second year in a row.

Janušaitis fourth at World Short Course Championships
Berlin, 15 November (ELTA). Lithuanian swimmer Vytautas Janušaitis took fourth place in the final of the 200 metres short course final.
In a time of 1.54.41 he was 2.15 seconds behind race winner Darian Townsend of South Africa. Second in the race was Michael Phelps, winner of eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.

Lithuanians rise in rankings
Lithuania’s 19 year old tennis player Ričardas Berankis has moved to 402nd place in the ATP world rankings. Laurinas Grigelis also moved up to 590th position and Dovydas Šakinis rose 15 places to 912th on the world rankings.
All three Lithuanian tennis players are currently at their career-high ranking. In total 1804 tennis players are classified in the rankings.

The season 2008 - 2009 certainly proved one of the most interesting we’ve seen for a long time, but not always for the best reasons.

Žalgiris was close to going to the wall, and with a fully depleted roster and bankruptcy seeming inevitable at season’s end, it was only the cheque book of Romanov that came to the rescue, very much at the eleventh hour. Still, with a promise of some five million euro and a debt purported to be well over 20 million, the money woes are not over at Žalgiris, and sadly some of their best players, many who remained loyal despite periods of wage uncertainty, are being courted by other clubs.

While Jankunas seemed close to finalising negotiations to keep wearing green for at least another year, it appears that Khimki has won the race for his services. Meanwhile it seems Kalnietis and Maciulis are also destined for other clubs next year.
On the plus side for Žalgiris is the signing of rebounding machine Travis Watson on a 1 + 1 contract, and with Marcus Browne still under contract after being leased last year, there is at least the nucleas of experience around which the new, and necessarily young, Žalgiris team can start to rebuild both its economic and sporting fortunes.

Meanwhile the story of the season was undoubtedly Lietuvos Rytas, who had to order another shelf in their trophy cabinet after winning every title they contested in 2008 – 2009.
Even the most optimistic supporter wouldn’t have even dreamt of such success after the first few months of the season.

First was the change of coach as Kurtinaitis took over the spot at the end of the bench from Sireika, and then as their own money troubles hit, first Nielsen and then Branko Milisavljevic were traded to other clubs in order to shore up finances.

Not the best formula for starting the EuroCup campaign, but in the end it was the inspired leadership of Kurtinaitis and decision to keep Eidson on the roster that allowed Rytas to emerge from the 2008 - 2009 season as the most successful of all time.

After a few ups and downs in the regular season Rytas managed to make it into the next round, largely with on the back of their strong home-court advantage, and with a strong work-ethic based on an eight or nine man roster, a team of committed and determined players managed to overcome the superstars and mega-budgets of teams such as Benetton Basket, Hemofarm Stada, and finally Khimki in the final to ensure themselves a place in Euroleague for the 2009 - 2010 season.

In defeating teams that had up to ten times their own budget, unfortunately Lietuvos Rytas ultimately paid the price of not being able to afford many of their own players for next season. Eidson is at least tripling his money in Israel, and similarly Petravicius and Lukauskis were offered contracts that the club could no longer match.

The local derby again pitted Rytas against Zalgiris in the final and the boys from Vilnius earned the LKL title with a 4 - 1 win that really was much closer than the scoreline suggests. Zalgiris played with pride in the finals despite being over-worked and underpaid, but the title had to be handed back after a home gain.

Kurtinaitis rightly praised his whole team for their effors throughout the seaon and now looks to buildling a new team from scratch.

With the new season just around the corner, and destined to be playing against the big boys in Euroleaugue, Kurtinaitis again has his work cut out for him as Vainauskas announced a reduced budget of six million litas for the forethcoming season, compared to around ten million for the previous campaign.

But first of course there is the little matter of European Championships where all of last year’s adversaries join together with a common Lithuanian uniform to acheive the main goal of qualifying for the World Championships next year which requires at least a fifth place finish.

RV

Denver Nuggets restricted free-agent forward Linas Kleiza has agreed to a two-year, $12.2 million contract with Greek team Olympiakos. The contract has an opt-out clause, which allows Kleiza to again become a restricted free agent next summer.

Kleiza averaged 9.9 points and four rebounds while shooting 44.7 percent as Carmelo Anthony’s backup last season. Olympiakos also has three other former NBA players on their roster: Josh Childress, Andreas Glyniadakis and newcomer Von Wafer. Olympiakos has also expressed interest in Detroit Pistons free-agent guard Allen Iverson. Kleiza’s contract is the largest European deal this summer.

Duffy said that while Kleiza attracted interest from other NBA teams, his client’s restricted free-agency status limited his options.

“There was never any substantive negotiation with Denver,” Duffy said. “Based on that, we turned our interest to a global market.”

Warsaw, June 8 (ELTA) - Lithuanian discus thrower Virgilijus Alekna took second place in the 55th Janusz Kusocinski Memorial competition on Sunday. The 37-year-old discus thrower from Vilnius threw the discus 63 m 93 cm.

This was Alekna’s second competition this season.

The memorial was won by Olympic vice champion Pole Piotr Malachowski. He threw the discus 65 m 98 cm. Hungarian Zoltan Kovago was the third with 62 m 22 cm.

Zurich, June 3 (ELTA) - The Lithuanian national football team dropped from the 59th position to the 60th position in the latest world football teams rating table announced by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) on Wednesday.

The points collected by the Lithuanian national football decreased from 550 to 544.

The Latvian team (522 points) rose from 61st position to 59th and the Estonian team (297 points) maintained 113th position.

Spain (1761 points), the Netherlands (1442 points) and Germany (1378 points) captured the top three positions in the rating.

A total of 207 teams are qualifed. Lithuania is 31st among the 53 European teams.