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You may not have heard of 'grappling' but it's a sport Jersey seems to be quite good at as Jersey BPT recently returned from a national competition with 14 medals and three championship belts.
Last weekend nine martial art athletes from Jersey travelled to Birmingham to compete in the North American Grappling Association's British Championships and they all came back with medals.
It was the first time Brazilian Power Team (BPT) Jersey had taken a full squad from white belt youths all the way up to adult black belts.
The BPT Jersey are said to be the most active team in the Channel Islands, with everyone from young students of eleven who are relatively new to the sport, up to the head coaches of the team who’ve been training for 20 plus years.
Youth Tom Coleborn and Ethan Soar were participating in their first competition and both picked up multiple medals: three and two respectively.
Kierra Myles, the most active female grappler in Jersey who has competed in everything from small local competitions to the biggest tournaments in the world came away with double silver.
William Moir and Piotr Karolczak competed in the white belt beginners division of under 80kg with Moir taking a bronze medal, and Karolczak taking two medals – a bronze in ‘gi’ and a gold in ‘no-gi’
Charlie Tromans, a blue belt, competed as an intermediate ‘no-gi’ and adult under 80kg and came away with a silver medal.
BPT Jersey instructors competed in the masters division:
Eduardo Afonso, brown belt and Michael Canas, purple belt, were paired in the same category of under 75kg expert division - being on opposite sides of the brackets they won all their fights and progressed to the final where instead of fighting each other they closed out the category with Afonso taking the title Champion belt and Canas taking Silver.
Canas then went on to compete in Masters under 75kg purple belt ‘Gi’ and won the category, claiming the championship belt in the expert division.
Eduardo Afonso also took silver in the Masters under 75kg Brown Belt ‘Gi’ division
Finally, BPT head coach Miro Afonso, black belt, completed a flawless route to the title in the under 90kg expert ‘No-Gi’ division winning all his fights by submission to be crowned champion and walk away with the Champion belt.
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