Las Vegas, September 26. It was the final day of the World Master Jiu-Jitsu IBJJF Championship 2015, where all the black belts and brown belts were fighting their final matches.
The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Masters is a tournament for martial artists 30 years of age and older. It’s for both genders (male and female). The World Master Jiu-Jitsu IBJJF Championship is a yearly tournament where the best masters in the world show up to compete for the title. This year, it wasn’t any different. It was a two-day sold-out tournament.
Our Ribeiro Team started winning at both genders on the last day of the event, and after the higher ranks took the stage (Sensei Saulo Ribeiro, Paulo Guillobel, Jorge Brito, Brian Mendez, etc), team Ribeiro finished the tournament in the first place. It was a long two days with a lot of sweat and tears, but in the end, all Ribeiro competitors felt that they contributed to the extraordinary result.
At the end of the day, our Ribeiro Team representatives stepped onto the first place position of the podium to receive the First Place Female Team trophy and the First Place Male Team trophy. It was a very emotional moment because the Ribeiro Association was also celebrating its 20th Anniversary. Sensei Saulo was very proud of his team’s accomplishment.
But then… a couple of days later… the drama started. After awarding the Ribeiro Team with the first place trophies of both, male and female, divisions, IBJJF, which it is run by members of Gracie Barra Team, switched the male first place final results, claiming that Ribeiro and Gracie Barra scored the same amount of points. As I’m writing this blog, we haven’t heard from any IBJJF representative to explain the reason for the recount.
So until now, our team holds both trophies at its headquarters in San Diego, but on the IBJJF website shows otherwise. For an unknown reason, Ribeiro Team lost points. I’ll keep you posted when I find out more details about this crazy turn of facts.
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