With Marcelo Dunlop and Rafael WerneckLess than one month after his great victory over Travis Wiuff at UFC 52, Renato Babalu flew to Guatemala where he competed in the Wrestling Pan American Championship. Selected as the replacement for the injured Rodrigo Artilheiro, Babalu did not disappoint his fans. Even though he had not trained for this competition, he was able to reach the podium by winning the bronze medal of the Up to 120kg Greco-roman category. ‘I always try to reconcile wrestling with my MMA training program. It helps me to warm-up and to be fighting at an amateur competition excites me a lot. I enter the fighting area with the same spirit. I go there to win, beat everybody and come home’? said Babalu about competing at the Pan Ams. But Babalu was not the only Brazilian winner at Guatemala. Current Pan Am champion, Juliana Borges did it again and conquered her second consecutive gold medal after defeating Jackie Fuentes, from Venezuela, in the final round. Brazilian team head coach, Roberto Leitao, who defended his country’s flag at the Barcelona Olympic Games, celebrated another three medalists. Rosangela Conceicao also got the gold medal at the up to 72kg category and Susana Almeida (up to 48kg) and Joice Silva (up to 55kg) won bronze medals. ‘The results were great. I’m very excited about my athlete’s performances. They’ve reached something we considered to be impossible to achieve. When we left Brazil we were expecting to win three medals, total! And after only a day we already have five!?, finished Leitao.
