Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Jenna Kaila Napolis has improved every year.
Napolis carried the Philippines’ campaign in the JJIF World Championships 2021 on a bright note following her bronze-medal finish in the -52kg women’s adult event at the Jiu-Jitsu Arena in Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi.
The 2019 World Martial Arts Mastership champion may have lost her third match in the elimination round, but she made sure she was not going back home empty-handed.
She pulled off two submissions against Aigerim Kuatkyzy of Kazakhstan to bag the bronze medal in the tough competition that brought the best jiu-jitsu athletes from all over the world.
“Heartbreaking, but so many reasons to be grateful. So many obstacles leading here but still, we made it here to compete and move well,” Napolis said in her social media post.
“Super grateful to the people, who helped me prepare and to the people who sent me here,” she added, tagging the Philippine Jiu-Jitsu Federation and the Philippine Sports Commission that financed the Team Philippines’ participation.
Napolis was the silver medalist in the 2017 Asian Indoor Martial Arts Games in Uzbekistan. In 2018, Napolis took the silver in the Asian Championship.
The following year, she bagged the silver in the 2019 SEA Games and bronze in the Asian Championship before finally emerging as champion in the World Mastership in Korea.
There was a lull in jiu-jitsu competitions in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of this writing on Thursday, four-time world champion Meggie Ochoa won her first match via submission.
Other Filipino athletes competing in the world tourney are Jolly Co, 2017 AIMAG gold medalist Annie Ramirez, Marc Alexander Lim, Carlo Pena, and Luigi Ladera.
National coach Ali Sulit said the competition is so tough that “if you win even at least one match in the worlds, you definitely belong.”