Lithuania’s “prime ambassador” 4th at World Cup, doubles Google searches
2014 09 14.Lithuanian National Basketball Team lost the Basketball World Cup bronze medal game to France 93:95 this year and took 4th place. This is worse than Lithuania's performance in the previous World Cup 4 years ago (3rd place) but better than many expected after the country's main point guard Mantas Kalnietis was injured on the eve of the event. As usual, Lithuania successfully used its entire roster to the fullest to compensate the lack of leaders in some positions.
The success of Lithuanian National Basketball Team more than anything else helps to spread the interest in Lithuania worldwide, effectively making it the Lithuania's prime ambassador. Same as always, the number of Google searches for the word "Lithuania" nearly doubled in the month when the worldwide basketball tournament was taking place.
As seen in the Google diagram above, Basketball World Cup/Championship and the Olympic basketball tournament tend to be the biggest PR bumps for Lithuania, while the impact of European Basketball Championship is more modest (except for the 2011 event which was held in Lithuania).
Interestingly, all the other major Lithuania-related political and cultural events (such as the Lithuanian presidency of the European Union or Song festival) fail to give any noticeable impact in monthly Google searches for "Lithuania".
Similarly, the presence of other Lithuanian talented sportsmen in Olympic games (in addition to basketball players) fails to bring foreign interest in Lithuania above that of a regular Basketball World Cup.
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