Mr. CHEATER in the Tourney!

Cheating happens everyday -- cheating the traffic law, cheating in school, cheating on your partner. But when it happens in a sport you love most, what do you do?

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I officiated in the 2011 Philippine BJJ Nationals in Manila last weekend. As I was weighing one of the guys (junior white belt), I noticed that the scale went crazy for about 10 seconds before it stopped on the right weight. I thought it was weird but I just dismissed it. When the guy went off the scale, one of my teammates told me what he saw: as my eyes were glued on the screen of the scale, his teammate (a blue belt) was holding his pants and was slightly lifting his left leg up! He made weight on his first weigh-in -- 81.95kg for the under 82.5kg division. So I asked him to step on the scale again, cleared the area around him, and told him to stand in the middle (his left foot was desperately hanging on the side of the scale) -- then I saw that his actual weight was 86+kg! That was a difference of 5kg! I was so freakin' furious!

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I disqualified him from the junior division and told his coach about it. His coach was equally furious. He was so scared of his coach he almost cried in front of us. He was such a disgrace for the sport, and a mockery of the discipline that every martial art instills on its practitioners.

We let him join the adult division, and to our dismay, he tried to take two medals (he got a bronze) from us. WHAT A BLATANT CHEATER. He apologized after all the brouhaha, but now he's been branded as a "cheater." I'm sure the next time I see him in another comp, I will definitely be watching him to make sure he doesn't cheat again. He just lost his credibility and the respect of the organizers.

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