The Portuguese delegation that will participate in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest was stranded in Frankfurt without knowing when it will be able to go to the Hungarian capital. The Portuguese mission is one of those affected by the cancellation of flights to Budapest in the last few hours.
heard by TSFthe president of the Portuguese Athletics Federation, Jorge Vieira, advances that the organization is trying to find individual solutions for athletes to reach the Hungarian capital.
“It is impossible to travel in a group at the moment, because Lufthansa does not guarantee us that flight today. They are sending us the next day, for tomorrow, which for us is inconceivable and, for this reason, we are trying to get other flights and with other connections to solve the problem. Solutions are being found in part by small groups, prioritized by the athletes’ competitive program. There are those who go through Vienna, there are those who arrive through Amsterdam, ”he explains.
Jorge Vieira is already in Budapest and guarantees that no Portuguese athlete will miss the World Cup due to this incident.
“We will do everything possible so that this does not happen in any way. If it was for all I know, they were supposed to fly tomorrow, they are bringing up the flights, filling the seats on the next few flights with people who are late. and there has not been that sensitivity to urgency, but we are addressing it through other connections. It’s a setback, obviously, but I hope this setback doesn’t affect athletes in a very significant way,” he says.
Already on Thursday night, also in statements to the TSFThe national coach, José Santos, regretted that this group lost a rest day in Budapest, before the competition, which starts this Saturday morning, with the first athletes already competing, some of them with qualifying rounds and finals in the first working day.
“There is no way of knowing when we are going to arrive in Budapest, we already have races on the 19th, that is, we should already be in Budapest. We were still in Frankfurt, everything was oriented and suddenly we had to go back. no explanations,” he advanced.
José Santos also stressed that the situation is something that “is not in our hands, we are not to blame.”
“The problem is that we don’t know when we take a plane, that’s the drama,” he added.
A Federation official heard this morning by RTP, admitted that the first group of athletes to enter the race this Saturday will be able to travel to Budapest, this Friday, around 12:00, with a stopover in Vienna, Austria.
* News updated at 7:43 am
Source: TSF
