“America\’s Favorite Tournament’ ???
Generally, the US Open it is one of the best tournaments in California in terms of organization. However, due to unprofessional and ill preparedness, I would like to express my frustration with the organizers of the event self called, \”America\’s favorite tournament\”, concerning one of my students.
Ryan Murphy was competing in the open brown belt division which is an 8 minute match and had outscored his opponent 7 to 6 when time was up. While the match was 6 to 3 in favor of Ryan\’s opponent, the fight was stopped due to an accidental blow. When it was restarted, the timer remained frozen, until spectators yelled at the table to let them know about it. Both athletes didn\’t notice the timer wasn\’t restarted, nor did the referee stop the match, so they continued to fight. Ryan, in side control, went for an armbar, knowing that he needed to win by submission or outscore his opponent. When the submission attempt failed he went on to mount and was awarded 4 points by the referee, keeping that score until the end of the match.
When the match was over, the opposing team stated to US Open director, Professor Alvaro Mansor that the clock was not restarted on time and so Ryan\’s last 4 points were invalid because it would\’ve been after the 8 minute mark.
The Director chose to think that the fairest thing to do was to take Ryan\’s points away and raise his opponent\’s arm without viewing any tape or finding out for sure how long the timer was paused for. Ryan, at that point was still clueless of what was happening.
The athletes base their game strategy on the clock. If Ryan knew that he didn\’t have as much time as it was showing, he would\’ve tried to finish or score points sooner than he did.
The referee should\’ve stopped the match immediately and found out how much time to be deducted before the matched continued, as is in Wrestling.
After so much time and effort spent training to compete for a medal that he himself paid for when registering for the tournament, it is very disheartening the athlete receives instead, the indifference and disrespect from the event\’s organization by getting his points as well as the victory taken away.
Due to their failure in training the staff properly, the athlete, once again, paid the price. Mistakes happen, but the appropriate correction must be made. It is unacceptable that someone with so much knowledge and experience in the sport such as Professor Alvaro Mansor has taken this kind of measure.
The lack of consideration and respect with its athletes is the reason why Jiu-Jitsu tournaments have lost and will continue to lose many of its fans and competitors. Unless things change it will be very difficult to see our sport ever in the Olympic Games.
Best Regards,
Crosley Gracie
Crosley Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy