MADRID, 10 One. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Lointek Gernika has asked FIBA to “optimize” the “protocols” for the detection of coronavirus positives, after the ordeal experienced by the team in Turkey, where it traveled to play the Eurocup playoff match against the CBK Mersin and where the captain Belén Arrojo was retained after offering a positive result that finally yielded a negative.
“We would love that what we have lived through serves to reflect and optimize protocols and communication channels, avoiding that other teams have to suffer the same,” said the Biscayan entity in a statement published this Monday about the circumstances surrounding their trip to Ottoman lands.
In an extensive text, the Basque women’s team explained what happened between December 18 -when the first five positive cases appear in the team- and January 5, a day after being eliminated by CBK Mersin, which prevailed – after changing their usual flag to put a smaller one – in the second leg (69-40) and neutralized the 24-point deficit from the first leg.
The meeting had to be postponed at the time due to the number of positive cases in the Biscayan team, which returned to training when all the affected people gave negative in the antigen test as in the tests before traveling to Turkey.
On December 30, the team is informed that they must perform PCR tests on the entire Gernikarra delegation upon arrival in Adana, and despite the fact that the club requested that they be carried out at origin or that the test at destination be for antigens -to avoid problems with positive PCRs-, the FIBA denied it. Thus, the PCRS were made at Istanbul Airport on January 3, all negative.
On the same day, upon landing in Adana, a FIBA commissioner rejects the validity of the Istanbul results and forces the delegation to take a new test. The following day, the CBK Mersin announced that Belén Arrojo was positive, that a new PCR was performed at the hospital, this time negative. However, the captain could not leave the country without having given another negative result, which finally arrived on the 5th.
Arrojo, who was accompanied by Mario López, then left Turkey in the first available plane. “We want to thank the support and help of the FEB, Jorge Garbajosa, Oscar Graefenhein and especially Elisa Aguilar, who have gone out of their way for us,” said the club.
“Gernika KESB is a small club, which has always worked and has operated under basic concepts such as fair play, sportsmanship and respect, which makes us feel very proud of who we are, what we represent and, above all, of what we try to transmit to all the girls around us. We cannot allow anyone to question it, “he concluded.