Claudia Gadelha stopt met wedstrijdvechten

UFC

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Claudia Gadelha heeft haar MMA handschoenen aan de wilgen gehangen. De 33-jarige Braziliaan stopt haar loopbaan met een professioneel record van 18–5. Ze trakteerde haar fans met spectaculaire partijen tegen onder andere Jessica Andrade, Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Angela Hell en Joanna Jędrzejczyk. Ze was actief bij onder andere de Ultimate Fighting Championship, Shooto Brazil, Vision Fight en Invicta FC.

Gadelha heeft sinds november 2020 niet meer deelgenomen aan een MMA partij. Ze verloor haar laatste partij van Xan Xiaonan en liep hierbij een nare hersenschudding op. De klachten hiervan maken deel uit van het besluit om te stoppen.

Gadelha sprak de wereld toe via Instagram:

“In November of 2020, after the fight. I had a really bad concussion and I had post concussion syndrome. Which is the symptoms of a concussion for a long period of time. So I was suffering with the symptoms for a little while. It was very frustrating because my headaches were like a knife stabbing the back of my head. I was very nauseous, I was like throwing up and feeling very, very bad. I couldn’t even go for a walk, much less train. It was very frustrating. So I took some time away from the sport and I started studying nutrition at IIN. And I kind of fell in love with nutrition and with health and performance. And I started like studying other things, you know because I needed my energy for something else in my life. I am a very energetic person so I needed to do something else.”

De Braziliaanse Gadelha vocht in 2016 voor de UFC titel. Ze verloor toen opnieuw van Jędrzejczyk en kwam sinds dien niet meer zo dichtbij het goud. Ook was ze de title elimintor bij Invicta FC. Ze sprak verder op Instagram:

“I found out that without health we are nothing. You know I had to rush to the hospital in the beginning of my concussion, twice. I ended up in the emergency room, twice. You know, so I am here in Las Vegas by myself and my family is in Brazil and this is during COVID so I couldn’t fly to Brazil to go be with my family. Because it was like the beginning of the concussion so I couldn’t fly and my parents couldn’t come here because of COVID. So I had to spend a lot of time by myself and that was very frustrating. With that being said, I started thinking about not fighting anymore.”

Gdelha maakt met haar vertrek de zevende plaats in de UFC Strawweight rankings vrij.

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