Monday, March 1, 2010

Lithuania Medals!

Under pressure in the face of other Baltic medal wins (Estonia a Silver, Latvia two Silvers), Lithuanian athletes came through for their homeland. In the final event held during the closing ceremonies, Lithuanian chainsaw ice sculptor Karla Karvelotiene cut her way to a Bronze. Sawing swiftly against other athletes from countries such as Belarus, Sweden, and the darkhorse Somalia, Karvelotiene cut a life-sized image of a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman. "I really wanted to tug on the judges heart strings," she said. But the athlete was in for quite a surprise when every other prop at the closing ceremonies turned out to feature a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer. "They were everywhere and I was really worried that mine would get lost in the crowd." But there was no need to worry. Since ice sculpture is the Olympics newest event, Karvelotiene was surrounded by TV cameras the entire time.
Karvelotiene is the only girl in a family of ten athletes in the Vilnius suburbs, her brothers vying to make the Summer Olympics' first male synchronized swimming team. The exposure received by Karvelotiene has already brought her invitations to enter ice sculpture competitions in Pskov, Minsk, and Dnepropetrovsk. Lithuanian authorities say that for one full month the statue of Lenin will be removed from in front of the parliament building and be replaced by a statue of Karvelotiene with her chainsaw.

No comments:

Post a Comment