Ruta Meilutyte added another milestone Tuesday night. Already an Olympic champion and multiple-time world champion, she was named Lithuania’s Sportswoman of the Year for a record sixth time. Yet, during the national awards ceremony, the swimmer chose not to step onto the stage to accept the trophy, signaling a strong and silent gesture of resistance.

However, Meilutyte wasn’t protesting against the voters or her fellow athletes but against what she sees as a catastrophic political trend in her country’s sports government and beyond.

“I just want to thank the people who cast their votes, so I really want to thank them,” Meilutyte said as per LRT.

“But what is happening in the reform of the National Olympic Committee, in our state and government, everything is going in one direction, towards the destruction of a democratic state, and I simply will not stand by it,” the athlete further highlighted the reason behind her protest.

The specific reform Ruta is talking about is a controversial government-led overhaul of the sports funding system. This would mean getting rid of the current Sports Agency and giving its financial duties to a new council.

The Lithuanian National Olympic Committee (LTOK) strongly supports this change, but many well-known athletes are against it. This protest is not just a one-time thing for Meilutyte; it is a continuation of a personal principle that goes beyond athletics.

This is the same athlete who, years earlier, swam across a lake dyed red near the Russian embassy in Vilnius as a performance art piece protesting the war in Ukraine. At the end of her statement, she conveyed, “I accept the award and support all the athletes, but I do not stand by what is being done now. I think there is no need to say much; this has been happening for many years.” However, Meilutyte’s career is a testament to resilience.

The Olympic swimmer’s glorious career in the pool

Ruta Meilutyte was a child prodigy who first made headlines when she won several gold medals at the International Children’s Games in Bahrain in 2010.

“Finding myself in Bahrain was like a dream for me,” Meilutyte subsequently said.

At the 2012 London Olympics, the world took notice when she won gold in the 100m breaststroke at the age of 15, making her Lithuania’s first Olympic swimming champion. The next year, she swam a 1:04.35 in the 100m breaststroke, breaking the world record and proving that she was the best. But her journey has not been without some difficult times.

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Ruta announced her retirement for a short time in 2019, but then she was suspended for two years for missing drug tests. Her spectacular comeback to the sport has been marked by a tremendous transformation.

Meilutyte returned to the 50m breaststroke event, where she has been the best, winning four World Championship titles in a row from 2022 to 2025 and creating a new long-course world mark of 29.16 seconds in 2023. So, in just one night, Meilutyte turned a celebration of individual athletic brilliance into a harsh reminder that for some athletes, the principles they defend for their country can feel just as important as the records they break in the pool.