Ritinys.

If you suppose, that basketball is the national Lithuanian sport, I have bad news for you. Of course, nowadays it is crowd-pleasing and you can hardly find a yard in Lithuanian village without a basket for playing basketball. But, classical and historical game for this country is ritinys or ripka.

Lithuanians started to play it about 500 years ago. The player uses big stick as in ice hockey made of birch tree. With this "lazda" one should catch or stop a rubber disc "ripka", which is thrown by the opponents. Step by step the teams move towards one of the goal post, and if you are catching the disc or throw it not really good, the opponent will take the advantage and if the disc after their throw crosses your goal line - they get points.

Today we played with members of Plateliai junior team, who were the champions of Lithuania in ritinys in their age division.