Alliance dominates the Worlds
GMA team got its 2nd teams title in a row
Gurgel carries Cobrinha in one of Alliance's many celebrations at the Worlds / Ivan Trindade
Fabio Gurgel is already back in Sao Paulo after a long journey to win the 2009 World Championship, in Long Beach. “I just stepped in at home, thank God,” said the black belt leader of Alliance to GRACIEMAG.com.
Alliance conquered its second team title in a row beating its own scoring record (last year it tallied 117 and in 2009 121), Cobrinha was crowned four-time featherweight champion, Langhi captured his first, Bruno Malfacine “put an end to the featherweight curse,” Marcelo Garcia did well in his return to gi competition closing out with Sergio Moraes… The results couldn’t have been much better.
In the opinion of Gurgel, however, they could have. In the following interview GRACIEMAG.com readers will see how the general didn’t hide his sadness for Lucas Lepri’s loss to Gilbert Durinho and Tarsis Humphrey’s defeat at the hands of Romulo Barral.
GRACIEMAG.com: What’s your assessment of Alliance’s performance this Worlds?
Fabio Gurgel: Hard to say. We had a close to perfect championship. I think not everyone’s going to win all the time and we didn’t expect that. But I think we went in with a strong team with a great chance of winning again. We trained a lot for it. We’ve been training and doing physical conditioning work since last Worlds, because making it is one thing, maintaining it is another. I had to build the athletes’ consciousness, make everyone train a lot and keep up a good competition rhythm. To answer your question, I think our disappointment had to do with Lucan Lepri, who was a firm favorite to win, and ended up losing a match we didn’t expect him to. But everyone else lived up to expectations. It was a nearly perfect championship.
GM: How does the team feel having conquered its second?
FG: Marvelous. It’s recognition of the arduous work everyone’s been doing, the team’s dedication, the organization, folks believing more and more in the work we’re doing, everyone participating. I think Alliance is a model of good organization. Of course there’s no formula. Truth is we have a formula that works for us but might not for other teams. We broke our own record, managed to keep in ahead with a good lead in points.
GM: Last year Alliance scored 117 points and second place scored 66. This year you went up to 121 and Gracie Barra scored 88. What are your thoughts on those results?
FG: I think Alliance and Gracie Barra are the most organized academies doing the most global work, that’s why they end up standing out more than the others. Since the beginning we’ve known it would be a tight dispute.
GM: What is responsible for the increase in points?
FG: 117 to 121 is real close. But we did our job just like last year, the difference being that in 2008 we went in with the motivation of conquering the title we hadn’t won in 10 years, and this year we came in as favorites. Alliance is the only team to make it to the winners’ stand in all the main championships. I like to joke that we’re used to playing away from home, because we don’t have championships where we have our main gyms. There aren’t any in Sao Paulo, nor in Atlanta. So we travel to Rio to compete at the Brazilian Nationals, we travel to Europe, the USA. We’re always traveling, but we manage to get on the winners’ stand at all of them.
GM: Is any athlete particularly happy about their performance?
FG: It’s hard to speak for the athlete, but I think they all did well. But two people didn’t yet have the title and deserved to, and they were Michael Langhi and Bruno Malfacine. I think Michael, to tell you the truth, is now Jiu-Jitsu’s athlete of the year. He fought in everything in gi competition this year and won all the main titles. Another is Tarsis Humphreys, who had a match with Romulo Barral that I feel he won, from the zero to zero score there’s no way you can call Barral the champion, so it was a bit hard to swallow that silver medal. But as I said: you can’t win them all. To illustrate how things are. Vella beat Braulio in the same position Tarsis was in with Barral and the judges gave the match to Vella in one and Barral in the other. But those things happen when you have a zero-zero score, we can’t complain.
GM: You recently told GRACIEMAG.com you would like to see Marcelo Garcia training in the gi instead of MMA. What do you make of his return?
FG: Marcelo has always been a reference within Alliance. He’s been with the team since the split-up; he carried the “boat” on his own till now. He joined the team already at top level, already strong and everyone had the joy of seeing him fight. I always took the stance that he should not have left, but that was his personal decision. And now he’s back and really motivated, happy to return to competition. We want him to feel at home. I think he had a marvelous championship and Sergio Moraes did too. We have a great middleweight duo that’s going to make a lot of noise for some time.
GM: What are the next steps for the team?
FG: We're going to take off the gi for a while, as we have ADCC coming up in three months, so we'll put some emphasis on the ADCC and then the Brazilian Team championship and keep up the work. Our plan is to get better and better, stronger and stronger and more organized.
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