.
.

Record-Breaking BJJ Event in France / Sebastien Lecocq Wins Black Belt Open Class in 30 Seconds

Record-Breaking BJJ Event in France / Sebastien Lecocq Wins Black Belt Open Class in 30 Seconds

Photos: Lu’nivers BJJ Photography / https://www.facebook.com/lunivers.bjj/ 

This past weekend, Paris hosted the French National Championship from the CFJJB (IBJJF representative in France). The event saw 1400 competitors battle throughout the weekend, in gi and nogi, as well as kids and juvenile divisions.

 

For white and blue belts, this is not an open tournament, as competitors need to qualify beforehand, at local tournaments held all over the country. Only competitors on the podium of those tournaments can enter the National Championship. This limits the number of competitors in these divisions and ensures that the level will be much higher than in a regular open tournament.

 

This event shows one more time how BJJ is growing, with more and more practitioners and competitors in every region of the world. The French federation CFJJB currently has more than 8000 active members, and although it is impossible to make an accurate estimate of the number of practitioners in the country, we can be sure that it is far more than 8000.

 

In France, the situation is complicated and political – the Judo federation is very powerful and does everything it can to limit the growth of BJJ as its own art. They also host “newaza” tournaments with rules identical to BJJ, in order to keep their members who are increasingly attracted by BJJ. Another federation trying to fight for BJJ practitioners is the Wrestling federation, which organized a gi and nogi grappling event on the same day, in the same city.

 

This did not alter the quality of the National Championship, with some of the best black belts battling it out to become absolute champion. The big upset was last year’s champion Julien Da Silva who won his weight division but lost in the opening round of the open class. With the favorite eliminated early, young black belt Leon Larman, who trained extensively at Caio Terra’s gym and fought Levi-Jones Leary at IBJJF Worlds this year, won in spectacular fashion all the way until the finals (after winning the lightweight division). Against him was Sebastien Lecocq, more experienced competitor who has been on the podium of JJIF european and world championships, who is a “Single Leg X” leg lock specialist.

 

Watch the finals below to see who won (spoiler: it lasted less than 30 seconds)

In the open class, black belt no-gi division, veteran competitor Kenji Sette won the finals against good friend Christophe Levy, despite being much lighter than his opponent. He also finished first of the 2019 national ranking in gi and no-gi.

 

Team results:

 

Gi

1st – GF Team France

2nd – MK Team France

3rd – De La Riva Nantes

 

No-Gi

1st – Academie Pythagore

2nd – GF Team France

3rd – De La Riva Nantes

 

Kids

1st – Moka Team 443

2nd – Gracie Barra

3rd – De La Riva Nantes

Full results: www.cfjjb.com