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On the first Saturday of May, the 52nd International Sports Walking Festival “Alytus 2026“. At the same time, it is – World Athletics Tour Silver competition and the first Lithuanian athletic walking half marathon championship.
Half Marathon Men
The international festival was dominated by Ukrainians: in fact the first six places in the race were won by Ukrainian athletes. Mykola 
Rushchak won the first place (1:26:16), second place to Serhii Svitlychnyi (1:28:46), and the third place was won by Eduard Muravskyi (1:34:47). Although the country’s young male walkers do not have such ambitious goals yet, their performance in Alytus was pleasantly surprising. Twenty-year-old Lukas Lasevičius, who completed the half marathon distance for the first time, triumphed in the Lithuanian championship (1:45:13), silver was awarded to Tauras Jokūbas Grincevičius, who celebrated his 22nd birthday just a few days ago (1:46:18), and the third place was enjoyed by the experienced 45-year-old walker Darius Jazepčikas (1:47:01).
Half Marathon Women
The victory in the women’s half marathon also went to an athlete from Ukraine. Lyudmyla Olianovska stopped the clock at the finish line in 1:34:18 in front of Mayara Luize Vicentaine (BRA) who finished in 1:40:37). Austėja Kavaliauskaitė (LTU) performed very successfully here – she covered the distance in 1:42:27 seconds and took 3rd place. Austėja Kavaliauskaitė overtook Lithuania’s closest rival – Nadezhda Novikova (2:04:40 – 6th place overall9 by more than 20 minutes, so she confidently won the gold medal of the Lithuanian championship. Despite winning two medals, the athlete admits that there was no shortage of challenges on the track, and she herself hoped to perform better. “The start was not the easiest. The first half of the competition was quite good, according to plan, but in the second half my digestion stopped, so the pace slowed down, and the final result was not what we wanted. The competition itself and the conditions were really good, the competitors were strong”.
Austėja Kavaliauskaitė shares her impressions. She adds that the worse well-being could also have been caused by the intense period of competition – just three weeks ago, the athlete participated in the World Athletic Walking Team Championships in Brazil, and at the beginning of March she covered the same distance – half marathon – at a record speed (1:40:14) in Slovakia. “I already want to rest…” – summarizes the most capable walker in the country. When asked about the main goals of this season, Austėja Kavaliauskaitė does not hesitate to answer that it is August 10-16. The European Athletics Championships will take place in Birmingham (UK). Thirty-five of the strongest walkers from the Old Continent will compete in it, she is currently in 24th place in the qualification ranking.
Children, juniors, juniors, youth and masters competed in separate categories of the competition, while the Lithuanian Sports Walking Cup was won by the Kaunas team, slightly ahead of Švenčionis.
Photo Album by D. Kibirkščis.
