With only a year and a half “concentrated” in the practice of Brazilian jiu jitsu, Eneko Díez from Durangarra has achieved a meritorious fifth place in the European Championship of this sport. A position that leaves him “very happy but wanting more” and one of his goals is already to participate in the next World Cup to be held in June in the United States.
Despite only giving his best in this discipline for a short time, Díez is not a newcomer to martial arts. “I started at 5 or 6 years old with Durango Judo and I competed with them until I came of age”, he recalls. During that time he managed to be champion of Bizkaia several times and on one occasion he won the Euskadi title. “And he was also pretty high up in the national rankings.”
It was around the age of 18 that he was introduced to jiu jitsu “through a friend of my judo coach. I started going to Bilbao to train and I was practicing for about 6 months, but I gave it up for a couple of years, although I managed to win a tournament in Getxo. Now I’ve taken it up hard and I’m fully focused on it,” he recounts.
Jiu jitsu is a combat sport from Japan whose technique is based on ancient fighting arts from China and India. In its Brazilian version, closer to judo, the melee on the ground is prioritized, through dislocations, strangulations, immobilizations and takedowns.
“Physical condition counts to practice this sport, but it reminds me of chess. Every move you make is going to have a way to be countered, so every fight is a strategy game where you have to be aware of what the opponent is doing,” he describes. “There are many possibilities and you have to know how to react quickly.”
combat injured
Currently, Díez resides in Madrid for work reasons and competes with the Checkmat club in the Spanish capital. His first important challenge was a national championship that was played in Valencia, with the misfortune that, two weeks before the tournament, he injured a rib.
“I had been preparing for a long time so, despite this, I decided to participate. I won my first match but in the semi-final I had to face a fighter from the same team. So I decided to leave because I believed that he had more chances to win the Championship”, he narrates.
Participation in the European was a double challenge. In addition to the sporting aspect, “the financial cost is high and it is only worth going if you think you have the chance to do a good job,” he says. This circumstance causes the majority of participants to be champions of their zones “which greatly raises the level of the tournament.”
Díez faced the championship with confidence and defeated his first rival, “a very good Brazilian who could have been in a very high position in our category (middleweight, less than 82 kilos)”.
The podium “very close”
His second duel pitted him against another high-level opponent, “an Englishman who was champion of Nottingham, whom I also managed to beat,” he says. “In the end, everyone you meet is very strong.”
The defeat came in the quarterfinals, where he met the one who would be the final winner of his weight. “I saw the podium very close, which encourages me to continue since this was my first international experience and I experienced it as a first contact.”
Touching the medals has served the durangarra as a stimulus to face more ambitious goals. “I hope to be able to go to Los Angeles in June to participate in the World Cup and face the best on the planet. In my club they are helping me a lot in training, now they need to respect my injuries”.
