One of the biggest talking points surrounding this year’s ADCC was the spread of a form of conjunctivitis called EKC (or, as it’s become colloquially known, “pink eye on steroids”). The eye condition affected multiple athletes at this year’s Championship, with Keenan Cornelius dropping out of the event entirely after being afflicted with it.
For some competitors, though, if there was ever a time to either risk getting infected with EKC or infecting others with it, it was ADCC: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many grapplers. More than a few competitors had visibly red, swollen, and watery eyes, and unsurprisingly, previously bright-eyed athletes ended up with the condition after the event. The Matburn Podcast, which is hosted by Josh Hinger and frequently co-hosted by Cornelius himself, took to social media yesterday to share the stories of some of the competitors who’d come home from the event with EKC.
Do you guys think it was a **** move for people to compete with a highly infectious virus? Or is ADCC so important that it’s okay to overlook? What would you do if you or your opponent had the melting eye disease? Yolo? Or sit it out like @keenancornelius? • #thematburnpodcast #bjj #jiujitsu #grappling #wrestling #submission #hingerbjj #keenancornelius #adcc #ibjjf #blackbelt #nogi #worldchampion #sandiego #mma #bjjlife #grapplersguide #wormguard #hingertine #jtorres #ekc #meltingeyedisease #essentialbjj #cancun #abudhabicombatJT Torres, Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu, Orlando Sanchez, Mahamed Aly, and Mason Fowler were among the athletes named as victims of the super infectious condition.
Now, Seth Daniels — Fight 2 Win CEO and part of the team for ADCC 2019 and 2021 — has announced that both F2W and ADCC will be more thorough in checking for both eye and skin disorders during weigh-ins to prevent all the contagious ickiness that’s so easily spread from sweaty human to sweaty human when grappling.
“Moving forward F2W and ADCC will be more diligent about doing eye and skin checks at weighins. Fighters are also responsible to not bring contagious visible or not visible **** with them to the event.”
We’ll keep our fingers (and eyes?) crossed that more preventative measures throughout the jiu-jitsu community can keep athletes at all levels safe from EKC, ringworm, and every other irritating or dangerous condition that strikes fear in the hearts of grapplers everywhere.
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