by Sara Farr

The Macau Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Association brought home a total of nine gold and silver medals from the Copa de Hong Kong held in the neighbouring SAR over the weekend, ranking three best in the tournament after Kowloon and Taiwan.
Brazilian Jiu-jitsu World Champion Andre Galvao and vice-champion Eduardo Telles also attended the event and held a seminar on Sunday afternoon after the tournament.
Saturday, the first day of the two-day tournament, was solely for “Gi” competitions, and saw 10 of the team members registering their names down for each of their weight categories, while Sunday was reserved for no “Gi” competitions.
“Gi” is the traditional training uniform worn in martial arts such as judo, karate and also jiu-jitsu.
Although not all local team members won their first matches, either for having the least points in the five minute fight or for tapping out after an opponent doing an arm or foot lock, six of the guys still went through to the finals.
Charbel Assaf won gold in the senior under 82 kilos white belt category, while Patrick Goodwin settled for silver in the super heavy blue belt category, Danilo Jacinto got the gold for white belt “Pena” category, while Tiago Afonso also won gold in the light weight white belt category.
Bryan Wynne won gold in the medium weight white belt category while Luis Serafim got silver.
Although nine of the ten also registered for the open weight category, only Luis and Bryan were sent to the finals in the white belt category. However, being on the same team, black belt master and local team professor Daniel Charles chose to have the two not fight against each other and call it a “home victory” with both sharing the gold and silver medals.
On the second day of the tournament, the fight referee cut short both Luis and Danilo's fights, allowing both their opponents to win each round, and passing through to the next.
Although highly controversial and condemned, the referee's decision was made based on the fact that he said he thought the “positions were too dangerous and could result in injury.”
Professor Daniel still tried to call the referee's attention to the fact that both men were “grown ups and knew how much pain they could handle.”
Even though Luis' fight was cut short, he still managed to secure a silver medal for the open weight white belt category on Sunday.
The team is back in Macau and although had a break from training yesterday, are set to return to the mat for more hard work during this week.