A characterization of extremal elements in some linear problems

We give a characterization of elements of a subspace of a complex Banach space with the property that the norm of a bounded linear functional on the subspace is attained at those elements. In particular, we discuss properties of polynomials that are extremal in sharp pointwise Nikol'skii inequalities for algebraic polynomials in a weighted $L_q$-space on a finite or infinite interval.