The president of the Portuguese Judo Federation, Jorge Fernandes, denies having fired the national coach Ana Hormigo, although he acknowledges that “he can no longer continue.” THE TSFthe same official explains that he asked “the federation’s lawyer to get in touch with her [Ana Hormigo]”.
Faced with these justifications, and when asked if Ana Hormigo was then invited to say goodbye, Jorge Fernandes also denies it.
“Is it over there [Ana Hormigo] He will get in touch with the lawyer, I asked him to, so that we can both talk and reach an understanding”, he explains, reiterating the idea that “there are no conditions” for Hormigo to continue working in the federation. he wrote on social networks without ever having spoken with the federation he is not in a position to continue here, “says Jorge Fernandes.
In August, Ana Hormigo expressed her solidarity with an open letter signed by seven of the ten athletes from the Olympic sports project: Telma Monteiro, Bárbara Timo, Rochele Nunes, Patrícia Sampaio, Catarina Costa, Anri Egutidze and Rodrigo Lopes. The document contained criticism of the operation of the modality in Portugal and the denunciation of an “unsustainable and toxic climate” supposedly promoted by Jorge Fernandes.
On social networks, Hormigo ended up writing that the “called appeal” of the seven athletes reflected the “concern for what has been experienced and witnessed in national judo in recent times.”
“It’s not just 7, but it was these 7 with the courage to ‘show up’ for national judo, for those who don’t have the strength or voice to express themselves. There are 7 who are subject to emotional pressure, to the public. opinion at a time when the race for the 2024 Paris Games is taking place,” he defended.
“Because it’s Telma Monteiro, is what she says true?”
The controversy with Ana Hormigo continues now, two months after this publication, and also through social networks. It was on Instagram that the judoka Telma Monteiro revealed that “the federation fired the coach Ana Hormigo, by email, the day before the team’s departure” for the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, a competition that enters the classification for the Games Olympics.
In the same publication, the judoka reveals that the president of the federation will have advanced in an internal meeting that the judokas who signed the critical letter from the leadership of that body have to retract “this week” or “they will be brought to trial.” “.
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It is another communication that does not go down well with Jorge Fernandes. “I have heard her speak several times about the management of the federation. It can be run and managed better than what we are doing,” challenges the official, who even advises Telma Monteiro to “prepare for the next elections, in 2024.”
Although she acknowledges that the judoka is “one of the best athletes in the world” and that she has “every right” to criticize, in Jorge Fernandes’ opinion “she [Telma Monteiro] You have to worry about focusing on training and competition.”
The president of the federation even brings to the conversation with the TSF other athletes, like Jorge Fonseca – “do you hear that about him?” – or Catarina Costa, who signed the letter, in the summer, with other athletes, “and she distanced herself”.
“Why? I wanted to separate myself and recognize that I was wrong and that it is not true. Now it is like that, because I am Telma Monteiro, is everything true what he says?”, he concludes.
The presence of the coach is “reason for destabilization for athletes”
questioned by TSF On whether this decision could end up destabilizing the preparation of the athletes for the next competitions, Jorge Fernandes vehemently denies it: “No, no, no, no. If I thought that it could destabilize the athletes, naturally she [a selecionadora] wouldn’t go.”
The official even advances that the understanding in the federation is precisely the opposite. “What we think -and it’s not just me- is that the presence of Ana Hormigo with the national team is, at this time, a cause of destabilization for athletes”.
Source: TSF
