Gabi Garcia, is the most dominant female BJJ competitor in history, however in 2015 she was defeated twice which hadn’t happened in the past 6 years.
2015 competitor of the year Mackenzie Dern first defeated Gabi in the finals of the World Pro Open Weight, then Gabi lost to Jessica Oliveira in the semi finals of the 2015 ADCC. She started the year well though winning double gold at the Europeans.
On February 2014 the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency), organization responsible for testing IBJJF’s athletes for Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED) announced that Gabi Garcia had used such substances during the course of her 2013 campaign. She was stripped of her titles for that year, however she was found to have used PED’s unknowingly and as such was not suspended from the organization.
Gabi has recently lost a lot of weight and was able to drop under 100 kilos.
Gabi took to her facebook page for expressing her feelings faced with these recent defeats:
This picture says a lot!
For those who think I feel bad with the defeat, I spent 7 years at the top of the sport I chose to live off and 14 losing without even getting a single medal, trying to find my place by the sun.
I am very young and new generations keep appearing. What I did up to now, hardly any woman will do. But I don’t talk about the medals but about overcoming all the problems and obstacles that life gave me and I surpassed them all.
Who thinks the defeat made me sad is wrong, I lived with it for many years and know its part of the game.
I kept fighting, losing, winning, and this is the difference between the champion to the one who will never be one. To accept sometimes you are at the bottom and sometimes you are at the top.
To be applauded by the public is the result not of my medals but of how I got to them.
The career of a fighter isn’t easy, especially if you are a woman, but I live doing what I love and I harvest wonderful fruits from it and am extremely proud of my path. God opened a big door for me and on this picture, for another person.
Learn to understand your mistake and that it won’t always be your day.
Learn that the most enjoyable is the preparation and not the result.
That new battles come by and that I am stronger than those so hope the champion loses, for those will never know what it feels to preparing for being the best.
That women win their space, that I lose some and win many more but that my will to prepare myself will never be bigger than my will to win.
The result passes, your daily battle is what defines if you deserve or not to be the champion. And that God, during the defeat, doesn’t take this smile away.
Sloth Jiu-Jitsu: you can be slow and unathletic and still kick butt in Jiu-Jitsu.