At the beginning of this month, the annual Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu European Championships were held in Lisbon, Portugal at the Casal Vistosos Sport Complex. The team from GB Marbella always competes in this event, and this year the event was larger than ever. We’ve heard that close to 1,500 individuals competed for the coveted medals in 2009.
This year GB Marbella sent 10 people to compete, who returned home with seven medals:
- Vinicius Moura took bronze in his black-belt category.
- Jose Antonio Merida (of our partner school in La Linea) was the star of the team, winning gold in his category, and silver in the brown-belt open class.
- Matt Henderson took bronze in his brown-belt category.
- Augusto Aloisio took bronze in his purple-belt category.
- Miika Mehmet took gold in his white-belt category.
- Brendan Slade took bronze in his white-belt category.
- Last but not least, DD took silver in his white-belt category.
In addition to these, Brandon and Javi Bombero had really good showings in the white-belt category, and Leo Galati had the misfortune of being paired with the current world champion in his first purple-belt fight. (In fact, Leo had an excellent fight with the world champion. It could have easily been the final!)
As always, our favorite photographer, designer and BJJ tough-girl Caroline Azzi was there to take photos. We hope to have them up an online soon!
In other news, our good friend Jude Samuel, a black belt from Roger Gracie’s gym in London who frequently visits Marbella and trains with us, had an amazing performance at the European’s, winning gold in his black-belt category, and silver in the open class, losing only to the legendary Fabio Gurgel!
All in all, it was a fantastic event. We had a lot of fun, got to see our BJJ buddies from around Spain, and even had a chance to take some photos with Rickson and Kron Gracie! Looking forward to next year!…