Lithuania Pulls Its Athletes Out of Soviet Competitions

Sports officials in the breakaway Baltic republic of Lithuania have decided to withdraw their athletes from national Soviet competitions and keep them off Soviet teams in general.

Lithuanian athletes will not compete on Soviet teams in this summer’s Goodwill Games or in the 1992 Olympics at Barcelona or in various European championships, the newspaper Sovietsky Sport reported.

The Lithuanian State Sports Committee’s decision, made last Wednesday, would allow Lithuanians to compete in “open” Soviet championships to which they are invited virtually as foreign guests.

Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union on March 13, and although the Kremlin has rejected the move as invalid, the republic of 3.7 million has gone ahead with steps to cut many of its ties with Moscow.

Many Lithuanian coaches will continue to work with Soviet teams, the government press agency Tass said last weekend.

Beniaminas Zelkavicius, chief trainer of the Zalgiris Vilnius soccer team, said the Lithuanian decision to withdraw from this years’ championships came as a painful surprise.

“This is a difficult time for us,” he told Tass.