LTU – Macijauskas career over

VILNIUS (2010 FIBA World Championship) - Health issues have forced Lithuania’s Arvydas Macijauskas to call it quits in professional basketball.

The sharpshooting guard, a member of his country’s EuroBasket 2003 gold-medal winning side in Sweden, had recently begun training again for the first time since 2008 when injuries forced him off the court.

Macijauskas, 30, expressed the hope that he would not just return to the game and play for the first time in nearly two years but also rejoin Lithuania’s national side.

Lithuania coach Kestutis Kemzura gave him hope by including the guard in his preliminary squad for this summer but Macijauskas has been forced to stop playing.

"I have a spinal hernia, which, to play professional sports, requires an operation,” Macijauskas said in an interview with the Lietuvos Rytas newspaper.

“In addition, after having the Achilles tendon surgery in September 2006, the left calf muscle has atrophied - two and a half inches lower than the right (calf muscle),” he said.

Macijauskas could enroll at university and still remain involved in basketball, potentially as a coach so he can, in his own words, “experience the joy of winning and the pain of losing…”

Meanwhile, Lithuania may have to admit defeat in their attempt to CSKA Moscow small forward Ramunas Siskauskas back to the national team.

He, too, was named in Kemzura’s preliminary squad but after leading CSKA to their eighth consecutive Russian Superleague title on Monday, Siskauskas said he would not be with Lithuania when they compete at the FIBA World Championship in Turkey.

FIBA