Vagner Rocha was recently handed a three-year suspension from IBJJF competition by the USADA after refusing to submit a sample for a PEDs test, and now he’s opened up publicly about the matter. Rocha wasn’t alone either as he was actually just one of five athletes who were handed suspensions in the wake of the 2022 IBJJF no gi world championships. Even though Rocha refused to submit a sample for testing when approached by the USADA, he was clear about what the outcome of that test would be:
“Yes, I am taking steroids. I am 40 years old. I’m about to be 41. I am on TRT for the last five years of my life. I actually posted about it a couple of months ago, like 3 months ago. I have no shame in this.”
What he’s referring to is the fact that he publicly admitted to TRT use earlier in 2023. While Rocha is far from the first grappler to admit to using TRT as they get older, he is one of the few to admit to doing so while still being an active competitor. Other grapplers like Tom DeBlass have been open about using it, but only after they stopped competing. While Rocha has certainly attracted criticism for his decision to compete while on TRT, he also explained why he didn’t take the test and how he ended up on the mats at the 2022 edition of the IBJJF no gi world championship despite not being eligible to compete:
“I’m going to clearly fail the test, right? I’m not taking a test. So what I did is, I didn’t show up to pick up the medal because I felt it’s not fair for me to go on that podium, grab the first place medal, even though I know I had already won… I’m not gonna grab the first place medal and go home and say, ‘hey I won the world championships,’ even though I knew, the ruleset, I couldn’t do that…”
“I didn’t know. I went to the tournament. I didn’t even fill out the waiver. I asked my daughter to sign me, her brother, and her up. I said sign us all up for the tournament, we’re gonna go to California and compete. Paid the registration fee, she filled out the forms. I didn’t even know. I showed up to the tournament, I’m competing, three matches in, I’m four matches into the finals now, and they’re like ‘oh, you’re gonna have to test if you win.’ I’m like ‘okay…’ I already knew I was gonna win because the other finalist was a teammate of mine who said he wasn’t gonna compete against me because he already knew that even if we competed I was gonna win.”
While Vagner Rocha opened up about his own suspension from IBJJF competition, he also had some thoughts on PEDs in the sport in general:
“For you to test me for a sport that is amateur to me, it’s an amateur sport, right? I’m paying to compete. I pay to show up. I pay for my hotel. I pay for my training. There’s no part of it that I’m making any money out of this, you know what I mean? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
His opinion on the state of testing in the sport actually echoes the sentiments of a lot of fans and competitors alike. The process of only testing gold medallists of the world championship after they compete leaves a lot of room for athletes to still take PEDs and had little real impact on the sport. Rocha was aware of this himself:
“How about we test everybody, and then we’ll see what’s left from there, and that will change the sport. If you’re looking to change the sport, why test one person? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Vagner Rocha also gave his personal opinion on whether the IBJJF should actually test and hand out a suspension to athletes that fail:
“I think, allow people to have a certain level of regulation to their body so that they can perform, so that they can recover, so that they can live longer, so that they can be healthier, so that they can recover from injuries faster. Like dude, you are risking your body, you are playing with fire you know what I mean?. In Jiu-Jitsu we are playing with fire, you see people breaking their necks.”
The full video interview with Vagner Rocha where he opens up about his recent IBJJF suspension was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Mayn Idea:
