Photo: Rimas Gedeika

birthday, she was already one of Lithuania's finest junior sprinters. She participated with several national teams that competed throughout Europe. She ran sprint races ranging from 60 meters through 300 meters.

Although Agne had achieved notable success before 1996, the year 1996 was a major turning point in her young running career. It was in Sydney, Australia, at the World Junior Championships, that she gained international recognition. Representing Lithuania, running against the world's best junior 200 meter women sprinters, she took fourth place with a time of 23.75 seconds. This was quite an achievement for an 18 year old. What was even more noteworthy was that she accomplished this on the same track on which the track events will take place during the Olympic Games.

While 1996 was a breakthrough year, 1997 was an outstanding, record setting year! Agne began the year by establishing a new Lithuanian women's (junior and senior) 200 meter indoor record with a time of 23.89 seconds. That summer, running in Europe's Junior Outdoor Championships, she won second place in the 100 meter dash with a time of 11.42 seconds. This broke the existing Lithuanian women's record. With this, Agne became Lithuania's fastest women's runner.

In the same championships, Agne also ran the 200 meters -- placing fourth with a time of 23.55 seconds. This was only.08 seconds off her personal best time of 23.47seconds.

No one was surprised when shortly thereafter, Agne started to receive scholarship offers from various American universities. After evaluating all of her options, she, like Jurga, said, why not! If you want to be the best that you can be, train and compete with the best! She accepted an offer from Iowa State University becoming the second Lithuanian runner to receive a running scholarship from an American university.

In the fall of 1997, Agne packed her running shoes and flew to McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois. There, she is currently enhancing her English language skills so that she will pass the language requirements to enter Iowa State in the fall. She is also competing for McKendree's track team.

During one of our conversations, I asked Agne whether there were any differences between the Lithuanian training techniques and the American training techniques. She stated, "In both Lithuania and America, the coaches have morning and afternoon training sessions. Yet in Lithuania, both sessions are very intense. However, in America only the afternoon session is intense, and even that is not as hard as the PM sessions in Lithuania. Which is better? Time will tell."

In January 1998, Lithuania's Track and Field Association voted Agne's 1997 record setting performance as the fifth best performance achieved by anyone of its track and field athletes. In addition, Lithuania's Sporting Federation voted Agne's achievements as being the 10th best athletic performance of 1997.

When asked about her future plans, Agne stated the following as being her top three goals:

• to represent Lithuania in this summer's European Track and Field Championships in both the 100 and 200 meters,
• to successfully complete her journey to Sydney, thus qualifying to represent Lithuania in the 100 and 200 meters,
• to complete her education obtaining a degree in sports management and exercise, and pursue a career in coaching.

Over the next two years each one of us will be able to follow and to cheer Agne along as she moves closer to Sydney to compete for Lithuania in the world's greatest track and field arena -- the Olympic Games.