Diego Brito with part of his medals won around the world.
From GFTeam Colonia, nowadays representing RioJitsu in Minnesota, USA, Diego Brito showed that his willpower and his dreams of living for Jiu-Jitsu would be much bigger than his physical adversities. After a severe injury on his knee, Joao Tavares Marinho and Jose Varella’s Purple-Belt student had to go through some tough times, but all of them led to hs growth as a person and an athlete. Most of young competitors would have given up the sport after such serious injuries in a row, but in Diego’s case it was only one more fuel to go back even stronger.
“In 2016, I tore my right knee’s ACL and my meniscus defending a position during a training session” he said. “During the surgery, the doctor noticed that my tendons were all ‘crambled’. He had to open my left leg to take pieces of tendon to use on my right knee. The procedure that was expected to take one and a half hour, took more than eight hours. Months later, at the same week that I was cleared to go back on the mats to train, I injured my ankle and my left knee, making me go through another round of surgeries.”
The love for Jiu-Jitsu, besides his resilience and the recovery skills of this young warrior, featured in many international competitions, made him a great example of mental strenght for our GRACIEMAG’s readers in these hard moments of a pandemic. And to prove that his knees and ankle are up to date, Diego recorded a position in which he counter-attacks a leg entrance, finishing on a choke, with his opponent’s collar.
