Injuries weaken Lithuania's basketball team

VILNIUS - Lithuania is in mourning because its main Lithuanian basketball stars will not be able to go to Sydney because of injuries. Basketball is considered by most Lithuanians to be more important than all other sports combined. Basketball is often called "the second religion of Lithuania" in this predominantly Catholic country.

Last week Arvydas Sabonis, the two-meter-and-20-centimeter center of the National Basketball Association's Portland Trail Blazers, told Rimas Kurtinaitis, director of the Lithuanian Department of Physical Training and Sports, that he probably would not go to Sydney because of leg injuries.

Presently Sabonis the Great is spending his vacation at his own hotel "Pusu Paunksmeje" (In the Shade of Pine-trees) in Palanga after a tough season in NBA. Kurtinaitis is a good friend of Sabonis. In the past they have played together on the Kaunas Zalgiris, Madrid Real, and Lithuanian national teams. While playing for the Lithuanian team, they won bronze medals in two Olympic Games in a row - in Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996. Kurtinaitis has retired from professional sports while Sabonis continues his highly successful career in NBA.

"I met him in Palanga. His leg is swollen. He doesn't say anything categorical, but it seems that he will not be able to play in Sydney," Kurtinaitis said. He also expressed regret that Arturas Karnisovas, this year's champion of Italy with his Bologna Pfaf team, will not be able to play for the Lithuanian basketball team in Sydney also because of leg injuries. Sabonis and Karnisovas each were elected by European journalists and coaches as the Continent's best players in years past.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas of the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers and Virginijus Praskevicius, playing in Belgian Ostende Telindus, also refused to play on the Lithuanian national team in Sydney because of traumas. However, Kurtinaitis seems not to have lost enthusiasm about Lithuania being a world basketball superpower since the 1930s when the Lithuanian national team was champion of Europe.

"Lithuanian basketball is of such a high level that our team can fight for Olympic medals even with the remaining players," Kurtinaitis said. The Lithuanian national team that easily won against Spain's national team 87-72 in Granada last week proved his words.