Notícia

TABLE TENNIS ATHLETES DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO

Por CBTM

Athletes of 12 countries don't know whether they will arrive in Santiago on time to compete at the Chilean Open, starting on the 28^th of June. Fifty-three players have booked Varig's flights - RG 8920 (Sao Paulo-Santiago-46 athletes) and RG 8753 (Sao Paulo-Londres- seven athletes from Hungary) on the 26^th and 27^th of June. The airline neither confirms nor cancels nor rebooks the passengers on different flights from other companies. The foreign squads have been in the country since the beginning of last week to compete in the Brazilian Open, event of the World Pro Tour that it's been taking place in the Sirio Sport Club-SP, from the 21^st to the 26^th of June.

"The situation is worrying. We have already called Varig's contact center for costumers, but they don't tell us anything. All that they say is that they can neither confirm nor cancel the flight at this moment, that can only be done on the day of departure - by then it will be to late for us. We have tens of players leaving Sao Paulo do go to Santiago. We need to prevent ourselves of any problem that might be a great loss for them", explained this Brazilian Open coordinator of the Brazilian Table Tennis Federation (CBTM), José Zipperer Jr. "We have already orientated the delegations to speak directly to Varig, but the call-takers from Varig don't speak English. We ended up having to place a person of our staff to help them with that too", he finishes the explanation.

The technical-director of the International Table Tennis Federation, the Austrian Karl Jindrak, is also keen to solve the matter.

"We know that there is Lufthansa flight at 6h50 on the same day to Santiago and there are still some seats available. We will see what we can get", Jindrak added.

The Brazilian table tennis players are not in "danger" though. That's because, two weeks ago, CBTM changed all their tickets to LAN, the Chilean airline.

List of countries and passengers:

26.6 - RG 8920 - Sao Paulo-Santiago

Germany - two people

Austria - one person

Belgium - five people

Canada - eight people

Chile - nine people

Croatia - five people

Denmark - four people

Holland - two people

India - seven people

Portugal - two people

Sweden - one person

27.6 - RG 8753 - São Paulo-London

Hungary - seven people