Danas Rapšys leads the 8-strong Lithuanian roster just announced for this summer’s World Championships in Gwangju, Korea, with the freestyle ace being joined by the likes of Simonas Bilis, Andrius Šidlauskas and Giedrius Titenis.
Rapšys is on the lineup to race the 200m back, 200m free and 400m free, the latter of which the 23-year-old just broke the Lithuanian National Record last night. While competing on night 2 of the 2nd stop of the FINA Champions Series taking place in Budapest, Rapšys threw down a monster mark of 3:43.36. That dropped over 3 seconds off of his previous personal best of 3:46.73 set in May of 2018.
Tadas Duškinas also made the roster, set to represent Lithuania in the men’s 50m butterfly. The former Arizona State University swimmer nailed a new national record himself at the Lithuanian National Championships last month. Duškinas threw down a lifetime best mark of 23.58 to rank 24th in the world this season.
There are only 2 women set to compete for Lithuania in Gwangju, represented by Ugnė Mažutaitytė and Kotryna Teterevkova. The former has qualified in the 200m back, while the latter will be racing the breaststroke event trifecta of the 50m/100m/200m.
A glaring absence from the roster comes in the form of Ruta Meilutyte, the 2012 Olympic champion who is currently facing a possible 1-2 year ban due to missed doping tests. As we reported last week,Meilutyte reportedly missed 3 drug tests over a 1-year span, which violates the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) testing protocol.
Lithuanian Roster for 2019 World Championships
