In 1972, thirteen year old Girnius and a few of his friends played games in his hometown. One of his friends found a WW2 bomb grenade, his friend detonated the bomb by puncturing it with a nail. The force of the blast killed two of his friends, one aged fifteen and the other thirteen, Girnius lost his eyesight permanently from the explosion.[2]
Once Girnius left hospital, he was interested in competing in athletics. In 1980, he joined the Kaunas Academy for the Blind and Visually Impaired coached by Jonas Burakov. He took part in the 1988 Summer Paralympics and won two gold medals where he became the first Paralympic champion for Lithuania. In 1992, he competed once more at the 1992 Summer Paralympics where he competed for his home country after Lithuania became independent in the year before, he won a silver medal in the pentathlon and was one of the first six independent Lithuanian medalists. Girnius was awarded the Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas III in 1996 and the Fair Play Laureate Prize a year later.[3]
Lithuania
