Top competitor Gutemberg Pereira has just announced his decision to leave GF Team after 12 years representing them every time he steps on the mats. Pereira is a BJJ black belt under the team’s leader Julio Cesar and has been one of their top competitors for quite some time now. His biggest achievements since being promoted by Cesar back in 2017 have been his Abu Dhabi World Pro titles or his victory in the ADCC South American Trials last year. That gold medal in the over 99kg division would have earned him the right to test himself on the biggest stage in the world at ADCC 2022, but unfortunately that wasn’t to be.
Pereira wasn’t able to make it to the tournament as he suffered an undisclosed injury in training and was replaced by Max Gimenis instead. It’s a shame that Pereira wasn’t able to make good use of the hard-earned invite that he received but it’s not unheard of for athletes to receive an invite to the next event if they’re ruled out of the one they qualified for. With that in mind, fans might be able to see Pereira cashing in his invite at ADCC 2024 if the organizers allow him to do so.
Whether he is allowed to use his ADCC invite for 2024 or whether he goes back to compete at ADCC Trials again, Gutemberg Pereira won’t be representing GF Team either way. It’ll be a big blow to the team as well, as Pereira was one of their most successful competitors. The news comes just a matter of months after GF Team announced they would be merging with JiuArt in order to form a stronger team too, and the affiliation had pretty high hopes for the future. They will still be a strong presence in the sport regardless of course, but without Pereira on the team their success at the highest levels will definitely take a hit.
Gutemberg Pereira announced his decision to leave GF Team in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
