News

Vilnius, April 14, 2011 - The organizers of the EuroBasket 2011 have selected 2000 volunteers out of 6000 candidates who will be assisting with the organization of the biggest sports event in the history of Lithuania. The list of the candidates, who made it to the first phase of the volunteer training, can be found at http://www.eurodesk.lt/.

„The majority of volunteers expressed their will to help organise the EuroBasket 2011 in their cities and to present Lithuania to the foreign guests in the best possible way. We tried to select the candidates who do not take the EuroBasket 2011 as a pure entertainment, but who are ready to assume full responsibility for their future duties“,- says Arnas Marcinkus, EuroBasket 2011 volunteer manager.

Among the candidates there were several who do not even like basketball. „For instance, one girl wrote that she did not like basketball, but she would love to contribute to the EuroBasket 2011. She would agree to volunteer in the airports or other areas, where it would not be possible to watch the games live“, - said A.Marcinkus.

 The candidates of age 14 to 70 years have applied. There was a number of senior citizens who expressed their wish to volunteer for the event. Similar number of men and women filled in the volunteer forms, although there were more female candidates among high school students  and more male candidates among the university students.

„We are very glad to have received the forms from various specialists- interpreters, IT specialists, professional drivers, etc. We will have some interpreters of not so widely taught languages, such as Finnish, Portuguese and Croatian“, - says A.Marcinkus.

The organizers have received many foreign volunteer applications from Turkey, Spain, Latvia, Slovenia, Poland and Italy. A group of „professional“ sport volunteers, who travel all over the world volunteering for the biggest sports events, such as the Olympics, will be joining the group.

The total number of volunteers needed for the EuroBasket 2011 is over 1 500. The first phase of the volunteer training for the 2200 selected candidates will take place on the 29th of April in Kaunas.  After the first training course, the final volunteer list for the EuroBasket 2011 will be announced, and each selected volunteer will sign a contract.

The EuroBasket 2011 will take place on 31 August- 18 September in six Lithuanian cities- Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Panevėžys and Alytus. For the first time in the history of EuroBasket, 24 national teams will be competing for the medals and two guaranteed spots at the 2012 London Olympic Games.