After receiving the medal, the national team defender Šarūnas Marčiulionis began calling the team coach Vladas Garastas to come onto the podium. Soon, other players joined the call.
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V. Garastas came. And stood on the podium in the place of the twelfth player. And received a medal as the twelfth player.
There have been no other cases in Olympic history where a coach received a medal under such circumstances. Coaches generally do not receive medals at the Olympic Games.
The Olympic medals received by the Lithuanian national team and V. Garastas were only the culmination of a long and difficult journey through the Olympic Games.
But how did such a situation arise in the first place? It was caused by a major conflict between the national team veterans and the youth, which occurred even before the start of the Olympic Games.
15min invites you to recall both all the circumstances of this conflict and the entire journey of the Lithuanian national team at the Atlanta Olympic Games.
The article was prepared based on the 1996 newspapers “Lietuvos rytas” and “Respublika,” TV reports of that time, and competition protocols.
The first sparks – over Ž. Ilgauskas
To prepare for the Olympic Games starting on July 20, 1996, the Lithuanian national team flew to the USA on July 6.
Before that, the team played friendly matches in Lithuania against the Ukrainian national team, which they easily won 109:62.
The clear tournament favorites were considered the USA team composed of NBA players. Lithuania hoped to fight for second or third place.
After the match with Ukraine, players and coaches were asked to predict what place the team would take. V. Garastas and A. Sabonis hoped to take a prize place, Rimas Kurtinaitis expected silver, Artūras Karnišovas – bronze. Meanwhile, the spectators gathered for the send-off chanted “Gold!”.
The leaders of the team, as in the 1995 European Championship, were expected to be A. Sabonis, Š. Marčiulionis, and A. Karnišovas.
A. Sabonis joined the team after a successful first NBA season, where playing for the Portland Trail Blazers he averaged 14.5 points and 8.1 rebounds.
Š. Marčiulionis also came to the team from the NBA, Sacramento Kings, plagued by injuries. Because of them, he missed about a third of the season. In the summer, Š. Marčiulionis underwent knee surgery, and during friendly matches preparing for the games, he also sprained his ankle.
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A. Karnišovas had a successful 1995-1996 season with the elite European club Barcelona.
Other important team players were Rimas Kurtinaitis, Darius Lukminas, Gintaras Einikis, for whom this was also not their first tournament.
Twelve players went to the USA: A. Sabonis, Eurelijus Žukauskas, G. Einikis, A. Karnišovas, Mindaugas Žukauskas, Saulius Štombergas, Š. Marčiulionis, R. Kurtinaitis, Darius Maskoliūnas, Tomas Pačėsas, D. Lukminas, and Rytis Vaišvila.
A few days later, two more players joined them – Virginijus Praškevičius and Kęstutis Šeštokas.
They joined the team after winning the European Youth Basketball Championship, whose final took place on July 7. So in total, 14 Lithuanians were candidates for the team.
Theoretically, there was one more candidate. Although he later said he did not know about it himself.
As a reserve player, Žydrūnas Ilgauskas, recently drafted 20th by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA draft, was included in the list of candidates.
Ž. Ilgauskas missed almost the entire 1995-1996 season, during which he represented Kaunas “Atletas” coached by V. Garastas, due to injury.
He returned to the court only in May during the LKL finals and was not very effective: scoring 6 points and grabbing 4 rebounds per 3 games.
Kaunas “Atletas” lost the finals 2:3 to Kaunas “Žalgiris” coached by Jonas Kazlauskas.
Nevertheless, V. Garastas and the Lithuanian Basketball Federation (LKF) wanted to see Ž. Ilgauskas on the team.
And on the day of the team’s departure, “Respublika” quoted V. Garastas saying that LKF “for the third time takes off its hat and asks Ž. Ilgauskas to join the team”.
Ž. Ilgauskas himself was then in the USA, where he participated in the draft and later met the “Cavaliers” club that drafted him.
He told US journalists that he dreamed of playing in the NBA and was not seriously thinking about the Olympic Games.
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