Day 2 of the 2014 World Jiu-Jitsu championship went out with a a bang.
All thanks to Gracie Barra’s featherweight Edwin Najmi, who amazed the crowd with a flying triangle to catch Alliance’s Nicholas Meregali and win the adult male purple belt open class division.
The strike was so sharp that Meregali had nothing to do but to tap with only 22 seconds on the clock.
“It was amazing. This is a move I started doing in 2013 and I do it a lot. Today I tried three other times,” said Najmi after celebrating the title with his mentor, Romulo Barral.
The final prize for such a superb move and also for the dominating performance in the absolute came during the medal ceremony at the podium.
Barral awarded Najmi with his well deserved brown belt.
Among the women, Bianca Barbosa won the 2014 Worlds female purple belt open class.
She had four matches in the absolute and won all by points.
The final was against Amanda Santana and a last-second back taking granted Bianca the gold with a 6-4 score.
She also finished the featherweight division in third place.
In the blue belt division, also two open class competitions deserved attention from the crowd.
Tara White is the 2014 Worlds female blue belt open class champion.
She had four matches and submitted three opponents in the absolute.
In the final, she defeated Erin Harpe 1 – 0 on advantages after a 2-2 tie on points.
Hungary’s Krystof Szucs (GB) is the 2014 Worlds male blue belt open class champion.
Third in the middleweight, Szucs had four matches in the absolute, all won by points.
The big final was against Alliance’s Fabio Alamo. A guard pass secured the 3 -0 score.
Besides the open class divisions for the purple and the blue belts, some of the weigh divisions of the brown belt also went into play this Friday.
Brazil’s Marcio André needed six matches to snatch the featherweight gold and become a black belt.
Day 3 kicks off this Saturday, at 9AM. The adult black belt open class (male and female) goes into action at 10AM.
In the team’s partial results, the standings is as folows.
1 – Atos Jiu-Jitsu – 63
2 – Alliance – 62
3 – Gracie Barra – 44
For more info and for all the results, ibjjf.com.
Here is a photo gallery of the day.
