Marcio Andre won the -69 weight class this year at the world pro, defeating Paulo Miyao. In the early stages, he faced Mario Silva who has one leg.

Mario Silva lost his leg from the knee down in a biking accident back in 2004 – He found his new call  in Jiu Jitsu.

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On Thursday, when Silva hobbled on one leg into the centre mat, he got the loudest cheer of the Abu Dhabi Pro World Championship.

The 39-year-old, a black belt holder, was on a mission fighting against able competitors in round one of the Open category.

However, for the Mato Grosso west-central Brazilian resident, the 12-hour bus drive and then three hour flight to the city, before then taking another 14 hour flight to Abu Dhabi for a six minute fight, was not for a win.

All he wanted to do was to send a strong message that ‘nothing is impossible’.

“I had been doing Jiu Jitsu for over 20 years now and when I lost my leg I wasn’t down and out for long.

“Within four months I was competing again and that’s all because how mentally tough I had become because of Jiu Jitsu,” said Silva, who was a purple belt holder then.

“Also family support was crucial and my then girlfriend and now my wife along with the entire family stood by me. I found the strength to believe that I’m not handicapped,” added Silva, acknowledging that disability made his journey to black belt hard.

“It took me seven years to get the black belt. In 2011 I got the black belt and that was a great accomplishment. It was very difficult and took several tournaments. Then after success in one local championship my master graduated me to black belt,” recalled Silva, whose 10-year-old daughter Natialie is already creating waves in Jiu Jitsu with success in a lot of local tournaments.

“Natialie has won six tournaments already and has my same passion to excel. She is now yellow belt and will be getting here with me next year for sure,” said Silva, who was knocked out of the first round by Marcos Junior as it was a clearly a mis-match.

However, apart from showing courage, he wanted to show organisers that conducting a separate tournament for the disabled would be a good idea.

“I have travelled with two of my friends – Elsse League and Alex Taviara – and they are also handicapped. Apart from giving encouragement to people like us, we also wanted to have a handicap category for people like us. We also want to compete but the balance has to be same. We want a category to be added for us and hopefully one day that will happen,” said Silva, who runs a transport business back home.

The close shave with death has not kept Silva from biking. In fact his passion for speed has increased.

“I can’t stop riding a bike. I now own a Yamaha V-Max 1500cc. My earlier bike didn’t have that much power,” says Silva with a smile, showing a picture of his new bike on his mobile.

“I’m more cautious while riding but I believe that keeping away from the things you like to do is not the right thing to do. All I would say is we all should keep doing all that we love, battling all odds.”