Lithuania at the 2016 Summer Olympics |
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IOC code | LTU | ||||||||
NOC | National Olympic Committee of Lithuania | ||||||||
Website |
www |
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in Rio de Janeiro | |||||||||
Competitors | 67 in 15 sports | ||||||||
Flag bearer |
Gintarė Scheidt (opening) Edvinas Ramanauskas (closing) |
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Medals Ranked 64th |
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Summer Olympics appearances (overview) | |||||||||
Other related appearances | |||||||||
Russian Empire (1900–1912) Soviet Union (1952–1988) |
Lithuania competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. This was the nation's seventh consecutive appearance at the Games in the post-Soviet era and ninth overall in Summer Olympic history.
The National Olympic Committee of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos tautinis olimpinis komitetas, LTOK) fielded a team of 67 athletes, 48 men and 19 women, across 15 sports at the Games. It was the nation's second-largest delegation sent to the Olympics, just four athletes short of the record achieved in Beijing 2008 (71). As usual, the men's basketball was the only team-based sport in which Lithuania qualified for the Games. Among the sporting events represented by its athletes, Lithuania marked its Olympic debut in tennis and women's judo, as well as its return to weightlifting after being absent from the previous Games.
The Lithuanian squad featured three Olympic medalists from London 2012, namely light welterweight boxer Evaldas Petrauskas, breaststroke swimmer and world record holder Rūta Meilutytė, and defending champion Laura Asadauskaitė in the women's modern pentathlon. Track cyclist Simona Krupeckaitė topped the list of experienced Lithuanian athletes to make her fourth Olympic appearance, while Laser Radial sailor and Beijing 2008 silver medalist Gintarė Scheidt was selected to lead the Lithuanian delegation as the flag bearer in the opening ceremony at her third Games, a historic first by a female in the nation's Olympic history. Other notable Lithuanian athletes included NBA players Jonas Valančiūnas and Domantas Sabonis (son of basketball legend and three-time Olympian Arvydas Sabonis), multiple-time European rowing medalist Mindaugas Griškonis, and swimming stalwarts Simonas Bilis and Giedrius Titenis.