Leonas Juozapaitis ( lit. Leonas Juozapaitis ; November 28, 1901 [1] , Vilnius - August 13, 1980, Kaunas ) - Lithuanian footballer , midfielder , athlete, basketball player. He played for the Lithuanian national football team , participant in the 1924 Olympics .
 Leonas Juozapaitis | |||||||||||||
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| general information | |||||||||||||
| Born | November 28, 1901 Vilno , Russian Empire | ||||||||||||
| Died | August 13, 1980 (78 years old) Kaunas , Lithuanian SSR , USSR | ||||||||||||
| Citizenship |  Lithuania | ||||||||||||
| Position | midfielder | ||||||||||||
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Biography
Born and spent his childhood in Vilnius, where in 1920 he graduated from the Vytautas the Great High School. However, in the same year, he left Vilnius after the city became part of Poland and moved to Kaunas . He graduated from the Kaunas military school (1923) and subsequently served in the Lithuanian army in officer ranks. After the accession of Lithuania to the USSR in 1940-1956 he was in exile in Siberia.
He was one of the pioneers of sports in Lithuania. He represented the LFLS club (Kaunas) in football , athletics , and basketball competitions . Silver medalist of the first Lithuanian track and field championship (1921) in 1500m running. In 1922 he became a two-time national champion in 5000 and 10000m running. He became the Lithuanian champion in three different distances - 1000m (3: 02.1 - 1922), 5000 m (18: 30.0 - 1921), 10 000 m (42: 01.5 - 1922).
In 1922, he took part in the country's first basketball competition as part of the LFLS team.
In football, twice became the champion of Lithuania (1922, 1923). He took part in the first official match of the Lithuanian national team - June 24, 1923 against Estonia (0: 5) [2] . He took part in the football tournament of the Olympics-1924 , entered the field in the only match of his team against Switzerland (0: 9) [3] . In total, in 1923-1924 he played 4 matches for the national team, all of them were lost. Also involved in refereeing football matches.
He was awarded the medal of the Order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas 3rd degree.