Jiu-Jitsu Officially Announced As An Event For The 2024 Olympics
By Emil Fischer -April 1, 2021
History was made today as the International Olympic Committee announced the inclusion of jiu-jitsu in the 2024 Olympics.
For years there has been much debate on which ruleset the Olympics would use should they ever include the gentle art and who would be the director of the event to ensure the sport’s smooth transition to an Olympic sport.
Carlos Gracie Jr., the grandson of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu founder Carlos Gracie; head honcho of the IBJJF and Gracie Barra will be overseeing the sport’s inclusion.
“We went to great lengths to ensure that our sport would be treated with the respect it deserves. We will be using the current IBJJF no-gi rules with some minor modifications. For starters, open hand slaps will be allowed to simulate reality, as well as low kicks from the standing position. It’ll look a lot like the style of jiu-jitsu that my grandfather promoted all of his life.”
The sport will look similar Combat Jiu-Jitsu with the exception of the low kicks.
There was some concern with the nationalism of BJJ, namely that many Brazilians take issue with the term “American Jiu-Jitsu” seeing as the style was brought to America by Brazilians. To address this, Carlos Gracie Jr. had some stipulations.
“Because we wanted to separate our sport in the Olympics from Judo, we are specifying it as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. As part of the opening ceremony for the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu event will include a collective bow to a portrait of Helio Gracie and Carlos Gracie Sr. We will also not be allowing teams that identify their style as American Jiu-Jitsu to participate because they are a threat to the shield of jiu-jitsu.”
Jiu-Jitsu Times is excited to see the growth of our sport and its expansion to the Olympics!
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