Portugal will have 13 athletes at the Paralympic Athletics World Championships. And there are those who haven’t even practiced the discipline in which they are going to compete for a year.

The athletes who will represent Portugal at the Paralympic Athletics World Cup in Japan are now known

“I’ve been training in the long jump for less than a year and suddenly I’m going to be doing it at the world championships. I only think about flying”, highlighted Sara Araújo, a 22-year-old athlete who will be playing her third cap as a senior, at Express Tribune.

The delegation will have 13 athletes, three more than the team that was present in last year’s edition, which took place in Paris. In addition to the four medal-winning athletes in France (Carolina Duarte, Carina Paim, Miguel Monteiro and Sandro Baessa), athletes Ana Filipe, Cláudia Santos, Cristiano Pereira, Helder Mestre, Igor Raevschi, Lenine Cunha, Mamudo Baldé, Márcia Araújo, Sara araújo and guides Ana Mendes and Vera Castro complete the working group that will travel to the city on the bay of Osaka.

José Silva, technical manager who will accompany the delegation to Japan, reinforces the importance of maintaining consistency in the results achieved in 2023: “We always expect between one and four medals, especially from the athletes who won medals in Paris, but everyone will do their best.”

Contrary to last year, in which the first four classified contributed to the opening of quotas for the Games, in Japan only gold and silver medal-winning athletes will have this reward, with the exception of athletes who have already won it in 2023, who, regardless of their results, they are unable to open new quotas for their companions.

Despite the difficult task of obtaining places, Sara Araújo, T12 athlete (with visual acuity higher than the T11 category and/or visual field restricted to a diameter of less than five degrees) believes in her own potential and that of the national team. “It’s always a sign of persistence. I was close to going to the Games once, but at least ranking I ended up not being able to do it. I want to continue working and there will always be that ray of hope. I would be super proud of myself for reaching a level that many aspire to.”