Vytautas Girnius (born 4 February 1959) is a retired

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

Paralympic athlete The Paralympic sports comprise all the sports contested in the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. As of 2020, the Summer Paralympics included 22 sports and 539 medal events, and the Winter Paralympics include 5 sports and disciplines and about ...

who competed at international track and field competitions. He is a double Paralympic champion for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

1988 Summer Paralympics The 1988 Summer Paralympics () were the first Paralympics in 24 years to take place in the same city as the Olympic Games. They took place in Seoul, South Korea. This was the first time the term "Paralympic" was used officially. Bidding proc ...

, he is also a two-time

Paralympic The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaire ...

silver medalist and a

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

bronze medalist for

Disability

In 1972, thirteen year old Girnius and a few of his friends played games in his hometown. One of his friends found a WW2 bomb grenade, his friend detonated the bomb by puncturing it with a nail. The force of the blast killed two of his friends, one aged fifteen and the other thirteen, Girnius lost his eyesight permanently from the explosion.

Sporting achievements

Once Girnius left hospital, he was interested in competing in athletics. In 1980, he joined the Kaunas Academy for the Blind and Visually Impaired coached by Jonas Burakov. He took part in the 1988 Summer Paralympics and won two gold medals where he became the first Paralympic champion for Lithuania. In 1992, he competed once more at the 1992 Summer Paralympics where he competed for his home country after Lithuania became independent in the year before, he won a silver medal in the pentathlon and was one of the first six independent Lithuanian medalists. Girnius was awarded the Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas III in 1996 and the Fair Play Laureate Prize a year later.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Girnius, Vytautas 1959 births Living people People from Virbalis Paralympic athletes for Lithuania Paralympic athletes for the Soviet Union Lithuanian male javelin throwers Soviet male javelin throwers Athletes (track and field) at the 1988 Summer Paralympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1992 Summer Paralympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1996 Summer Paralympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2000 Summer Paralympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 1988 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 1992 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 1996 Summer Paralympics Paralympic silver medalists for Lithuania Medalists at the World Para Athletics Championships