A teenage runner from Oldham will miss days of training in Portugal after his EasyJet flight was cancelled the afternoon before he was set to travel.

Evan Grime, 14, who runs for the Salford Harriers, is following in his parents’ footsteps and is coached by his dad.

The Blue Coat School student from Royton competes at 800 metres and 1500 metres, runs 20 to 30 miles per week to train and has qualified for the England team.

Last month, on March 25, Evan won the SIAB Cross Country junior boys race at Sefton Park in Liverpool, beating other pupils from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in the 4.1km race, beating the second place runners by eight seconds for a time of 12.04.

Dad Ian has hopes that Evan could one day compete in the Olympics, though doesn’t want to push Evan to train too hard.

The 52-year-old said: “I’m very proud of him, I coach him as well.

“I work with a set of coaches, and I’m very, very proud of him. I used to run myself, I competed in 1,500 metres and 3,000/5,000 metres.

“Hopefully Evan will be a bit better than I was, but he still doesn’t run as quick as me.”

Flights cancelled

Evan had been due to travel with other runners to Faro for an 11-day training camp on Monday.

But just the afternoon before, EasyJet informed Ian that their flight had been cancelled.

He said: “EasyJet offers you money back or transferring your flight.

“We were madly panicking so transferred our flight to Thursday as we thought at least we could go out for a week even if it’s not 11 days.

“It will have an impact, he won’t be with his training group, he’ll be training by himself, we go out there for the warm weather and you know what the weather is like here lately.

“It won’t have an impact on the overall season, but it will have an impact, we’d normally be doing shorter stuff, more sprinting when we go away as it’s warmer so it’s not as bad on your muscles.

“For Evan at his age it’s mostly missing being with his mates, he’s going to be here with his Mum and Dad bored out of his head.”

Ian says EasyJet has not offered any additional compensation beyond changing the flight.

An EasyJet spokesperson said: “We are sorry that following strike action by members of the SNPVAC cabin crew union, we were unable to operate Mr Grime and his son’s flight from Manchester to Faro yesterday.

“We notified customers in advance with the option to change to another flight for free or receive a refund however we know flight options to Faro are unfortunately limited at this busy time of year and we are sorry for difficulty this will have caused.

“Our customer team are in touch with the family to assist further with their options and provide the compensation they are due.”