Lithuania in the news
14th September, 2003
Lithuania - European Basketball Champions!
The captain, S.Ðtombergas holds the trophy.
Photo courtesy of "Lietuvos Rytas"
Sunday, September 14, 2003, Lithuania took out the gold in the 33rd European basketball championship, held this year in Sweden. In the finals Lithuania defeated Spain 93:84, while in the semi-finals Lithuania had defeated France 74:70 in a hard fought match. In the play off for bronze, Italy defeated France 69:67 . But the hardest match of the championship had been against neighbour Latvia in the very first match, when Lithuania defeated Latvia after a very intense battle by barely one point 92:91. This was seen by many fans as settling of scores against Latvia, which had defeated Lithuania in the previous championship in Turkey.
This is now the third time that Lithuania has won the European championship. It won it previously in 1937 and 1939 and this year's win is for the first time since regaining independence in 1990. In a case of "déjà vu", Lithuania had also defeated Latvia by one point in the final critical match in the 1939 championship.

Sources: ELTA 5/09/03, 13/09/03, 14/9/03 BNS 14/09/03