The crowd at the Worlds in Long Beach shouldn’t be too taken aback to see Jonatas “Tagarela” Gurgel in the race for lightweight gold dressed in one of those camoflauge gis, which have become fashion.
It wouldn’t be pure hostility on the Brazilian’s part, but an homage to the Jordanian army, to whom the ace has taught Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a martial art that has caught the fancy of King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein – and is even practiced, with much pleasure, by his brothers.
Tagarela, a collector of titles in search of an unprecedented gold at black belt, is not the only member of Jordan Team to arrive in California to fight for a medal. "We arrived on Saturday with ten athletes, among them our team's instructors and the athletes, most of them Jordanian soldiers," recounts Zaid Mirza, 29, student of Cassio Werneck and leader of the team coming from the Middle East. "We will dispute the Worlds with black belts Pedro Galiza and Jonatas Gurgel, brown belt Luis Fernando da Silva, purple Zaid Abu Soud and whites Mahmood Hussein, Saad Queidar, Saddam Abdalah and Tamer Samir. Our training over in the Emirates, our championships of Carlao Santos, will pay off now."
Jordan Team watched a good WEC 34 event yesterday, in Sacramento, with a win of Jose Aldo over Alexandre Pequeno among other fights. And the learning didn't stop there. "Before the competition we'll take the chance to train with Cassio Werneck, my teacher," says Mirza, who besides leading the soldiers will also escort a military authority, for the first time visiting a Jiu-Jitsu World Championship: good general Mohammed Noor Miqdadi.
