Athletes all across the USA will no doubt be devastated as the ADCC North American trials have been postponed for a minimum of 2 months, not too long after they have started their preparation for the event. The news was announced on the official ADCC Instagram account, where the promotion confirmed that the qualifying event will now take place in 2021 and may even be delayed by as much as 4 months, putting them in March. The news comes after the very first event scheduled; the European, Middle-East and African trials, was also postponed by several months due to various travel bans and quarantine restrictions that have hit almost every country in the world.
Shortly after the above post was released, a second was put up explaining that the event had received some pushback from competitors and fans alike. It seems as though a number of people weren’t entirely happy with the reasoning that the experienced ADCC judges and referees would not be able to make the trip from Europe and Dubai. They then confirmed that, while using North American staff for this ADCC trials event is certainly possible, they believe it would diminish the quality of the event, directly statingthat there is only one judge in the country that they trust.
In a recent exclusive interview with Jitsmagazine, ADCC head organizer Mo Jassim did confirm that delaying the trials event was a possibility. It seems as though this was not a snap-decision and there must have been weeks or even months worth of meetings and discussion about the subject, especially as travel restrictions in every country have been in a constant state of flux. Jassim also confirmed that should the trials events all be pushed further and further back, it may be necessary to delay the actual ADCC World Championships 2021 altogether, although there is no chance that the event will be cancelled.
