{"id":146816,"date":"2026-11-10T23:24:42","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T21:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/no-category\/146816-race-walker-juste-andrijauskaite-wins-silver-at-dakar-youth-olympic-games\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T23:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T21:40:19","slug":"race-walker-juste-andrijauskaite-wins-silver-at-dakar-youth-olympic-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/news\/146816-race-walker-juste-andrijauskaite-wins-silver-at-dakar-youth-olympic-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Race walker Just\u0117 Andrijauskait\u0117 wins silver at Dakar Youth Olympic Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new entry <\/b>in the history of Lithuanian athletics.<\/strong> Race walker Just\u0117 Andrijauskait\u0117 won a silver medal at the Youth Olympic Games currently underway in Dakar. No Lithuanian athlete had previously managed to reach the podium in the four editions of the Games held so far. The achievement also turned out to be a wonderful birthday gift for the 17-year-old athlete’s coach.<\/b><\/p>\n

A dramatic battle<\/b><\/p>\n

Ten athletes lined up for the women’s 5,000m race walk at the Iba Mar Diop stadium complex, but not all of them reached the finish line \u2014 three were disqualified for technique violations. Among those disqualified were the two race walkers with the best personal bests heading into the competition: Peru’s Rocio Andia and Italy’s Rebecca D’Alessandro.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lithuanian also received two warnings from the judges, but it didn’t throw her off course \u2014 Aleksandras Kitanovas<\/strong>‘s trainee completed the twelve and a half laps of the stadium in 23:55.00 to take second place. The only competitor faster than her was China’s Wang Yaru, who set a personal best of 22:58.33.<\/span><\/p>\n

The silver medal was decided in a tight battle with Ukraine’s Daryna Kozka, whom Andrijauskait\u0117 overtook by just 3.96 seconds at the finish. The Ukrainian’s time (23:58.96) was also a career best. The Lithuanian’s personal best stands at 23:38.91.<\/span><\/p>\n

After crossing the finish line, Andrijauskait\u0117 made no secret of her joy, admitting she hadn’t expected such a result. <\/span>“I’m really happy, I honestly didn’t expect this \u2014 it felt like I was running around fifth place. It was extremely hot, my legs were burning, I was so thirsty, but I pushed through. This was probably my best performance ever in such heat,” the athlete said emotionally.<\/span><\/p>\n

A page in history and a birthday gift<\/b><\/p>\n

The silver medal won by the 17-year-old race walker is the first medal for a Lithuanian athlete in the entire history of the Youth Summer Olympic Games. It is also a gift for Andrijauskait\u0117’s coach, Aleksandras Kitanovas, who happened to celebrate his birthday in Dakar on the day of the competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incidentally, this is not J. Andrijauskait\u0117’s first notable achievement in international competition. In 2025, she finished ninth in race walking at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Skopje, North Macedonia, and this year she placed fourteenth at the European U18 Championships in Rieti, Italy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even before leaving for Dakar, the race walker made no secret of her ambitions, though she was well aware that the heat could be one of the biggest challenges. <\/span>“My goal is to give everything I have and aim for as high a place as possible. I wish myself strength, endurance, and that the heat won’t stop me from showing what I can do,” Andrijauskait\u0117 said before the race. Clearly, her wish came true.<\/span><\/p>\n

Photo: LNOC \/ Vytautas Dranginis<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new entry in the history of Lithuanian athletics. Race walker Just\u0117 Andrijauskait\u0117 won a silver medal at the Youth Olympic Games currently underway in Dakar. No Lithuanian athlete had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":146817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146816"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146826,"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146816\/revisions\/146826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lengvoji.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}