The athletes who are part of the Portuguese delegation (of 29 elements) that will participate in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, have been held in Frankfurt, Germany, since Thursday. The Portuguese athletics federation is trying to find individual solutions to allow athletes to arrive in time for the competition, which starts next Saturday and ends on August 27. Flights have already been booked for the athletes who will compete in the first two days of the World Cups.
“It is currently impossible to travel in a group, because Lufthansa does not guarantee that flight for us today. They send us to the next day, for tomorrow, which is unthinkable for us and therefore, we will try to solve the problem with other flights and connections. Solutions are found in part by small groups, according to priority of the athletes’ competition program. There are those who go via Vienna, there are those who arrive via Amsterdam”told TSF the President of the Portuguese Athletics Federation, Jorge Vieira.
The official, who is already in Budapest, believes that no Portuguese athlete will miss the match, despite the fact that the delegation was among those affected by the cancellation of flights at Frankfurt airport. “Of course it’s a setback, but I hope this setback doesn’t affect the athletes too much,” he said.
to RTP, Portuguese athletics federation spokesman António Fernandes said that the athletes who will compete tomorrow, Saturday, have already scheduled a flight to Vienna today, with a connection to Budapest.
The flight is scheduled for 12 noon, with an estimated arrival time of 4 p.m., “if conditions and flights have no further changes or cancellations as happened yesterday.”
António Fernandes also told RTP the athletes who appear at the start on Sunday also have a flight scheduled at 4 p.m., but for the rest, around 10 a.m., a solution is still being sought. “We are considering the possibility that, if we run out of flights, we can take the train to Budapest, which is a journey of about 10 hours,” said the organization’s spokesperson.
With no itinerary revealed, just under half of the athletes departed from Lisbon for the Hungarian capital on Thursday, with a stopover in the German city, where the entourage of 29 elements, including 12 athletes, spent the night, now awaiting connecting flights. flights during today, the eve of the start of the World Cups in Budapest 2023, which will take place between Saturday and August 27.
The first Portuguese to take part in Budapest 2023, on the streets of the Hungarian capital, is experienced walker João Vieira, in the 20 kilometer run, on Saturday, starting at 08:50 local time (07:50 in Lisbon), who will be in the group held in Frankfurt.
Still on the first day of competition, there are Francisco Belo and Tsanko Arnaudov, in the shot put qualifiers – the final of which will still be contested in the Saturday night session -, Marta Pen, Salomé Afonso and Isaac Nader, in the 1,500m qualifiers, Tiago Luís Pereira, in the triple, and the mixed relay of 4×400 meters, which will consist of four of the six athletes (João Coelho, Omar Elkhatib, Ricardo Santos, Cátia Azevedo, Carina Vanessa and Fatoumata Diallo) .
The cancellation of the flight between Frankfurt and Budapest took place after the Portuguese Athletics Federation (FPA) confirmed the absence from competition of Pedro Pablo Pichardo, Olympic, World and European triple jump champion.
With Pichardo’s withdrawal, confirmed on Thursday, due to lower back pain keeping him out of most of the outdoor season, Portugal were without the two Olympic medalists, after Patrícia Mamona was also sidelined by injury, with 28 athletes in 21 events in the 19th edition of the World Championships in Athletics, which he won with a record 23 medals, seven gold, seven silver and nine bronze.
Source: DN
