Local Jiu-Jitsu team’s success not hard to grapple with

Saturday 14 July 2018

The Jersey Brazilian Power Team (BPT) has ranked 10th place overall in Britain, after collecting several medals at the prestigious British National Competition.

Several members of the Jersey BPT collected bronze, silver and gold medals at the event, contributing to the team ranking 10th place overall in Britain.

The International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) British National Competition, which took place at the end of last month in London, is a well-known event for the sport.

At this national contest, teams compete in the ‘grappling’ martial art of Jiu-Jitsu, in which fighters engage in hand-to-hand combat, trying to gain physical advantage over their opponent.

Head Coach of the BPT, Professor Vladimiro ‘Miro’ Afonso, who competed in the competition’s black belt division, won four gold medals. 

Pictured: Professor Miro Afonso won an impressive four gold medals at the IBJJF British Nationals (Jersey BPT).

In the adult portion of the nationals, Charles Tromans and Joao Sousa both claimed 3^rd place in their categories. In the children’s division, Cody Allchin won a silver medal in his first ever competition and Ethan Soar won bronze. Miro said that, although the team’s youngest members were “quite nervous at the beginning”, but soon their nerves turned to excitement. Miro said: “they can’t wait for the next competition!”

Telling Express the team’s reaction to their success at the nationals, Miro said: “That was very good especially considering all the competition in Britain… we’re quite happy with that! It’s the biggest event in the UK so all the teams were there, all the big names were there – it’s what we trained for. It’s the most important event for us in the calendar.”

The Jersey team has been going since 2005 and has even bigger plans to compete on a European and Global level in the not too distant future. 

Commenting on the team’s big ambitions, Miro told Express: “We’re going at the beginning of September to Dublin just to keep it easy and then we’re going to the National Pros from October until next year. We want to do the European National Pros to qualify for the World Series in Abu Dhabi at the end.”