Well the Rio Grand Slam has come and gone and it was interesting! My draw was actually the worst possible, I got the World Number 1 first fight of the whole comp. I wasn't crapping myself, just really didn't want to go out there and lose the fight mentally not physically if you know what i mean.
I new his typical game plan because i have seen him before and trained with him so i wanted to shut down his left side and stay side on so he couldnt throw his high right dominant grip. I did that well. However after about a minute of back and forth attacks from my preferred grip he switched for a sode tsuri komi goshi the opposite way to how he usually goes, this caught me off guard and by the time i reacted he was in too deep and i was over for ippon.
It sucks not because I thought i was better then my opponent, more that i was able to impose my strategy, in part, on the best fighter in the world and when he made one ver logical change i was unable to shut it down. I felt i could have hung in there for much longer and put more pressure when i did get my grips. oh well, lesson learned.
The rest of the aussie team did similiarly well, most had nightmare draws like Russia, japan etc. Kylie Koenig at 63's got our only win for the comp beating columbia by penalties before losing to slovenia next round.
This comp was an incredibly high standard. there was almost all of the worlds top fighters here, in my division alone 8 of the top 10 were here, in a division of 25 that means no easy fights! There were some awesome fights that took place, most of the 66 and 60 kg fights were brilliant and watching Guilheiro and Canto from Brasil in 81's yesterday was awesome, their technique at this level is like they are from another planet.
Now it's time for training camp where I get to do randori with all of these awesome fighters and see how i measure up, could be long days of getting belted but maybe i can actually catch a couple of them, we'll see.
Ivo
P.S. Almost lost my mate Matt D'Aquino yesterday in the surf at the beach here. The surf got crazy, quick, thank god for the life guards we thought he was gone, phew!
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