Virgilijus Alekna

Virgilijus Alekna (13 February 1972) is a Lithuanian former discus thrower and politician.

Since 1995 Alekna has served as a bodyguard of the Lithuanian Prime Minister.

He is married to former long jumper Kristina Sablovskytė-Aleknienė and has two sons named Martynas and Mykolas, also discus throwers.

At a height of 2.02m, Alekna has an unusually long armspan, measured 2.24 m (7 ft 4 in), which is helpful in discus throwing.

He can make fingerprints on windows of two opposite sides of a bus simultaneously.

He won medals at the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympics, including two golds.

Alekna has won two gold medals in the Summer Olympics in the discus throw, the first was in 2000 and the second in 2004.

Alekna was awarded the title of the Athlete of the Year for 2000 by Track and Field News.

He was also awarded the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas by the government of Lithuania.

He became the Lithuanian Sportsman of the Year 4 times (2000, 2004, 2005, and 2006).

In 2007, he was appointed as UNESCO Champion for Sport.

His personal record as well as the Lithuanian record is, surpassed only by the world record (74.08 metres).

During the 2007 World Championship Virgilijus Alekna competed with an injury.

Having sustained the injury on 20 August, he competed in the World Championship's qualification on 28 August and, as a result, suffered a defeat, which broke his 37 victories in a row over the past two years.

He also won the bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

After retiring from athletics, Alekna was elected to the national parliament, the Seimas, in 2016.

He has 3 children - Martynas Alekna, Mykolas Alekna and Gabrielė Aleknaite.

In May 2016, Alekna announced he would participate in the elections to the Seimas the following October on the electoral list of the opposition Liberal Movement, without joining the party.

He lost the run-off in Naujamiestis single-member constituency, but was elected to the Twelfth Seimas through the electoral list of the party, where he was rated second.

In 2017 Alekna was awarded the European Athletics Lifetime Achievement award.