Gordon Ryan has been vocal about advocating for steroid use in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu…
Even though he feels that there is a problem with its use. But not the one you might expect.
In a recent press conference, Ryan explained that the main issue with steroid use in BJJ is that there is not one governing body that would “oversee” the (mis)use:
You or I could start a jiu-jitsu tournament tomorrow and one of us can have PEDs legal, and one of us could have PEDs illegal.
The problem is that if one organization makes it so that PEDs are illegal, but then all of the other organizations that you’re competing at throughout the rest of the year say they’re legal, now I have to be clean throughout the year to compete [for] your one organization.
But the rest of the guys who aren’t competing in your organization can do steroids the full-year round.
So then I’m competing against those guys natural, and in the other organizations, those are the guys who are using PEDs.
As the sport rises in popularity, Ryan feels that there should be a unison decision on whether steroids should or should not be allowed:
It needs to be one thing across the board.
They either need to be legal across the board for all of the big tournaments, or they need to be illegal.Because then if they’re illegal for one but they’re legal for the other, you’re just going to have athletes that won’t compete in those events
It is when that change happens that progress will be made, feels Ryan:
If you fix that and everyone agrees PEDs are legal or PEDs are illegal, then you can kind of make some progress.
But right now, if only one, or two organizations do it, it’s not really going to work.
Sloth Jiu-Jitsu: you can be slow and unathletic and still kick butt in Jiu-Jitsu.
