By MARK REY MONTEJO
Margarita “Meggie” Ochoa, the face of Jiu Jitsu for years being a multiple world champion starting in 2014, dropped a bombshell on Saturday, Jan. 4, saying it’s time for her to quit competing – albeit with a heavy heart.
The former member of the Ateneo track and field team, however, will not be leaving the sport that brought her fame and fortune as she intends to stay around and inspire and impart her knowledge to aspiring Jiu Jitsu practitioners.
She did not elaborate, though.
“(I’m just) retiring from being a national athlete,” the charming Ochoa told Manila Bulletin-Tempo on Messenger. “Not yet from the whole sport.”
Part of her mission is managing her new club, Solas Jiu-jitsu, which began its operation last August and is located in Aurora Blvd., Quezon City, where she and her fellow mentors will share their skills and knowledge to the upcoming artists who are yearning to be like Ochoa in the future.
“Will focus on coaching and building my club Solas Jiujitsu,” added Ochoa, who along with teammate Annie Ramirez, pole vaulter EJ Obiena and Gilas Pilipinas won golds in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.
She triumphed despite enduring a flu.
She broke into national consciousness when won a gold medal as a white belter at the World IBJJF Jiu-Jitsu Championship. She also reigned in the said event for the next two years as a blue belter and as a member of the Philippine team.
But it was during the 2018 Ju-Jitsu World Championships in Sweden where she attained greatness after becoming the first Filipino jujutsu champion by bagging the gold medal in the women’s BJJ -49kg. That feat earned for herself a brown belt.
She further embellished her status when as a black belter won a gold medal in the World Championships gold – fighting in the -48kg – in the 2022 edition held in the United Arab Emirates.
She also campaigned in the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Turkmenistan, where she won a gold medal in the women’s -45kg. In the Jakarta Asian Games, she won a bronze in the women’s -49 kg event.
Aside from her sporting glory, Ochoa is also known as an advocate, launching Fight to Protect – a group who battles child abuse, and sexual violence, and sex trafficking – in 2018.
