Barral felt pains at January 29 tryouts. Photo: John Lamonica.
Few in sport Jiu-Jitsu have a record to match Rômulo Barral’s. The Gracie Barra fighter has collected three silver medals from the absolute division of the world championship, two world titles, a No-Gi World title, some shut outs with teammates, etc., etc…
The current world absolute and medium heavyweight runner-up with the enviable CV was bummed out. The reason being the pain he felt in his knee at the end of January in Las Vegas, while participating in the tryouts for the Abu Dhabi World Pro.
But his funk is now behind him, he insists, falling back on Jiu-Jitsu philosophy to help pick up his spirits: get out from underneath, get up, and win.
“You get bummed out for a few seconds, but never let it get to you! I’m already getting back to full blast,” he told GRACIEMAG.com today.
“My leg is a lot better now, thank God. I had the injury looked at and I had a strained medial collateral ligament. In a few days I’ll be 100%! And the best part is that I’m training again,” he says, to his fans’ relief.
“When I operated on my shoulder I trained using only one arm for a year and a half, so why not train with only one leg for a few weeks, right? The thing is that I think I started up again a bit early, I was missing that adrenaline, I felt I was fine, so I entered the tryouts,” he adds.
“So unfortunately my knee popped early in my match with (Marco) Sharpei, when he was in half-guard and I tried to cross my knee over to pass. I felt pain the whole match, and then I felt I ruined the operation I had after the 2010 Worlds… I iced it and decided to give up on the competition, but I couldn’t resist and ended up doing the semifinal anyways, even though I was nervous about it. But I realized there was no way I could do the final with Kron. It was a shame, I’m sure we would have had a great match.
“Then I got past the sadness because I thought it was something really serious but turned out to be temporary. I’m already focused on training and I’m confident I’ll have a great year. My main objective is the 2011 Worlds. I’m going to go for the absolute and, of course, the Worlds Pro in Abu Dhabi, since the organization confirmed me for the competition. I’m raring to compete, and as soon as 100% I’ll be back in the mix to throw some muscle around!” said Barral in finishing.