MARCH 11, 2020, as BJJ Heroes had alluded to earlier today, the IBJJF Pan American Championship has been officially canceled. In an official statement by the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation on their site (check here) the governing body wrote:
In an effort to prevent further spreading of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), The University of California, Irvine has canceled all events with more than 100 participants. Unfortunately, because of this, we are unable to hold the 2020 Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championship as currently scheduled. We will be refunding every registered athlete while we continue to work with UCI officials on the possibility of holding the event at a later date.
All registered athletes will be automatically refunded.
The news came as a major blow to the grappling community who had great expectations for this year’s tournament – widely regarded as the 2nd most important event on the sport’s international schedule. Among the big points of interest for this year’s Pan was the return of Leandro Lo to the middleweight division and the inclusion of the current roosterweight world champion Mikey Musumeci on the heavyweight division.
The federation’s statement does leave the door open for possible rescheduling of the tournament, hopefully as soon as the coronavirus outbreak has toned down. If not, 2020 will be the first year without an IBJJF Pan Championship since the tournament started, back in 1996. Stay tuned for further updates.
