Sports stars ready for Seimas: Olympic award winners, world champions and LKL Sports players

This year there are more political athletes than ever.

At least four winners of the Olympics hope to join Olympians Virgilijus Alekna and Sergejus Jovaiša, who have previously worked at Seimas. One of the best cyclists of all time in the country also has political ambitions.

There is no shortage of basketball players who have been supported by the game “Lithuania – for all” directed by Tomas Pačės.

Olympic Winners Record

Since 2012, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania has included members from 1980 and 1992. Sergejus Jovaiša, winner of the Olympic Games bronze medal, and four years ago was elected to parliament in 2000 and 2004. Olympic champion and 2008 medalist bronze Virgilijus Alekna. Now, at least four more Olympic award winners are applying to join the company.

Most of them have experience in 1976. Swimmer Arvydas Juozaitis, who won a bronze medal at the Montreal Games, has been spinning in the country’s political sky for several years.

19 years ago, A. Juozaitis became an advisor to the then Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas on educational and cultural issues, then for five years he held the position of cultural attaché of the Lithuanian General Consulate in the Kaliningrad region, and last year he ran for the Lithuanian presidential elections. votes and ranked fifth.

The former swimmer is preparing to go to the Seimas with the former Pensioners Party, now known as the “Union of Intergenerational Solidarity – Cohesion for Lithuania.”

He has also gained political experience in recent years. T. Pačės, winner of the Atlanta Olympics, took command of the former Emigrants’ Party.

The longtime player, who has been a coach for a while, has been playing in the halls of Alytus Township for the past few years.

Along with T. Pačės, the winner of two Olympic Games also prepared for the Seimas. gold and 1992 Valdemaras Chomičius, bronze medalist.

In recent years, the legendary basketball player has been closely associated with the current leader of the match he represents as he has been coaching the Alytus Dzūkija club supervised by T. Pačės for some time. It is said that V. Chomičius would regain command of the Dzuks if he still could not reach the Seimas.

The latest of the Olympic winners to prepare for Seiman is pentathlete Edvin Krungolc.

On the list of the party “Trade Unions of the Fatherland – Lithuanian Christian Democrats” in 2008. The vice-champion of the Beijing Games became a member of the party in 2012 and ran for the Seimas, and after a first failed attempt, that a Once called an “adventure”, try again this year.

European Champions: Veterans and Newcomers

High-profile sports faces can also be found on party lists before elections.

One of them is Simona Krupeckaitė, a two-time world champion and three-time European champion, who is among the candidates of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party.

The 37-year-old from Panevėžys, who has been voted the best Lithuanian athlete three times, won medals at the Minsk European Games last year, but now competes not for seconds, but for voters’ votes.

S.Krupeckaitė will try to follow in the footsteps of another European champion, Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, who has been at Seimas for eight years.

The 2011 European Chess Champion and 2006 the winner of the World Chess Championship has risen in politics for eight years to preside over the Liberal Movement and is the face of this year’s election campaign.

Landing of basketball players

From the stadiums of the Lithuanian Basketball League straight to the halls of the Seimas, at least some well-known basketball players in the country are trying to make that leap.

Captain Simas Galdikas of Klaipėda “Neptūnas” was on the Labor Party list before the elections.

At the beginning of the quarantine, the residents of Klaip vecinosda complained about the lack of funds and at the beginning of the summer they signed a new contract with the port city club until 2022, but they soon accepted the invitation to become one of the faces of the party.

Behind the scenes of basketball, it is said that in October, Neptune may have to look for a change for a midfielder who is seriously considering opening the Seimas, but so far S. Galdikas is not only plowing the turmoil, but also racking up points and fighting for bounced balls.

At the moment, not only elections, but also basketball is also practiced by Dzūkija striker Artūras Jomantas.

A former basketball player for the Lithuanian national team since 2018, he is playing for Alytus, and in the summer he was tempted by T. Pačės’s proposal to transfer his defensive skills to politics.

Together with A. Jomantas, another Vilnius legend “Lietuvos rytas” Stepas Babrauskas is preparing to make a breakthrough at Seimas. He also wore Alytus club clothes during the season.

The beloved Vilnius fan is completely dedicated to politics and does not currently play basketball, but it is said that if he fails in the election, he will continue his career as a basketball player and possibly even wear a Dzūkija jersey again.

There is more

There are more sports representatives on the electoral lists.

2016-2020 Kęstutis Smirnovas, a martial arts master who has already served in the Seimas during the second term, is again in the group of Lithuanian peasants and candidates for the green union, and Vydas Gedvilas, a representative of the Lithuanian Green Party, is trying to return to the Seimas after a four-year hiatus.

1997 The former coach who led the Lithuanian women’s team to triumph at the European Basketball Championship has already worked at Seimas for three terms in 2004-2016, and earlier this decade was even the Spokesperson for Seimas for a short time. .

Along with him, another basketball representative, Audra Ginelevičienė, is also running for the Seimas in the Lithuanian Green Party. Last year, the long-term president of the Lithuanian Women’s Basketball League served as Vilnius Rytas’s commercial director until she was forced to retire due to the scandal.

Paulius Malžinskas, well known in the world of football, also pursues a political career.

A former footballer who ran for the position of president of the Lithuanian Football Federation in August, but was mercilessly crushed in the elections, and now the president of the Vilnius Regional Football Union passes the Seimas on the list of the Liberal Movement from Lithuania.

Among the best-known sports figures on the electoral lists are former basketball player and now deputy mayor of Vilnius Linas Kvedaravičius (Freedom Party), former basketball coach Rūtenis Paulauskas (“Lithuania – for all”), son from the legendary soccer coach Benjaminas Zelkevičius, former soccer player Benjamin Zsisevičius (Lithuanian Green Party), rowers Algirdas Raslanas (LSDP) and Jonas Pinskus (Lithuanian Social Democratic Labor Party), former footballer Ritas Vaiginas (LSDDP).

Athletes in elections are not new

All of the aforementioned Seimas candidates are not the first athletes to try their luck in the elections.

Gintautas Šivickas once collected LKL at the same time and after more than 20 points, and the Seimas passed laws, the European champion coach Antanas Sireika, the famous basketball players Kšištofas ​​and Darjušas Lavrinovičiai, Rimantas Kaukėnas have also applied to the Seimas.

Four years ago, Žydrūnas Savickas, who has repeatedly become the strongest man in the world, did not show up for Seimas, and veteran Lithuanian soccer player Tomas Ražanauskas failed to escape parliament.