While waves of protest action in Egypt continue to dominate headlines worldwide, a single man’s own stand against tyranny in the Baltics went mostly unnoticed; however, for his bravery and determined single-mindedness, Šarūnas Šimaitis is surely a shoo-in for this week’s prestigious and always hard-fought Lithuanian Basketball Freak of the Week award.
(Yes, BallinEurope knows that’s not a real award. But it oughta be.)
It seems Simaitis was infuriated to the point of public demonstration at of his local cable provider Mikrovisata TV’s unwillingness to provide proper coverage of Euroleague basketball. Saras therefore, while wearing a sandwich board that tersely declared the nature of his protest, chained himself to a tree outside the provider’s office.
How did the protest go? Well, the expression “15 minutes of fame” is doubly appropriate here: Šimaitis’ close relationship with the tree lasted only a couple of hours (hey, it was cold in Kaunas yesterday) and Mikrovisata announced that, not only does the company provide a package which airs Euroleague games – including those of local franchise Žalgiris – and, odder yet, that no “Šarūnas Šimaitis” exists in the cable provider’s database.
No comment has been offered from Euroleague offices or even, disappointingly, from all-time LBFW award-winner Vladimir Romanov.
“Curious,” you may muse, but hey, it’s all about proportion, isn’t it?
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