World Famous Athletes
Athletic Directory

Discus Throw All-Time Rankings   (with Virgilijus Alekna)



Virgilijus Alekna is a famous Lithuanian athlete. He was born on February 13, 1972 in Terpeikiai in Lithuania, near Kupiškis (Lithuania).

He won two gold medals in the Summer Olympics, both in the discus throw. The first was in the 2000 and the second in 2004. In 2007, he was appointed as UNESCO Champion for Sport. His personal record is 73.88 meters (242 ft 4½ in), surpassed only by the world record (74.08 m.).

Alekna was awarded the title of Athlete of the Year for 2000 by Track and Field News. He was also awarded Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas by Lithuania government. Since 1995 has served as a body guard of the Lithuanian prime minister.

He is married to former long jumper Kristina Sablovskytė-Aleknienė and has two young sons – Martynas and Mykolas.

At a height of 2.00 m (6 ft 7 in), Alekna has an abnormally long wingspan, measured 2.22m (7 ft 3.5 in), which help his throwing. He can make fingerprints on windows on both sides of a bus simultaneously.[1]

In 2007 World Championship Virgilijus Alekna competed with an injury, which he suffered only on 20th of August. The athlete competed for the first time only in the World Championship's qualification on 28th of August and, as a result, suffered a defeat, which broke his 37 victories in a row over the past two years