Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) star Urijah Faber hailed the importance of the Children’s Cup as the curtain raiser for the 2014 Abu Dhabi World Professional Jiu-Jitsu Championship got under way on Tuesday. 

More than 650 schoolboys took to the mat on day one with the FGB Arena set to host a further 600 boys and girls today, taking the total number of participants in the competition past 1,200.

Faber, a former World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) featherweight champion and currently No15 on the UFC’s pound for pound list, was a guest of honour in the capital and was impressed by what he saw.

“The level of competition here is pretty awesome, you’re really giving these kids something big to work up towards,” he said. “Obviously there’s a lot of thought gone into this, to see these young kids showing all their hard work and for their discipline pay off is pretty neat.”

While there were emblems of Brazilian jiu-jitsu clubs, such as Al Jazira, on display at the FGB Arena many of the young participants were sporting school issue uniforms.

The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) introduced the sport into the curriculum of 14 schools in 2008 but in just two years that number had increased to 46 schools and more than 7,000 pupils from grade six upwards.

Growing up in America, Faber, who has a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, could only have dreamt of such a programme.

“I’m sure we’re going to see some really talented adults come out of this programme,” he added. “It would be a great idea to incorporate that [In American schools] you would learn so much from the grappling world. I would love to see America adopt that.

“We have wrestling in schools in a lot of the US but the jiu-jitsu side, the wrestling side all of it teaches so much character.”

Young Emirati judokas dominated day one taking gold in 35 categories, in front of more than 2,000 fans.

Twelve-year-old Fares Mohammed took gold in the yellow belt 38.5kg field.

“It feels good to win my first medal because sometimes I play with strong players and sometimes I play with players but they are almost all strong here,” he said.

Fourteen-year-old Ali Abdulrahman, who won the orange belt 58.5kg category, added: “It feels good to win. It’s my life, jiu-jitsu.

“I want to put the UAE name at the top of the world of jiu-jitsu.”