With Austin Gamblers’ Teams Championship, Leme stands atop the mountain once again
The two-time World Champion is one of just two riders with multiple individual world titles and a PBR Teams Championship to his name.
By Darci Miller
FORT WORTH, Texas – The 2024 PBR Camping World Team Series Championship. T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The championship game between the Austin Gamblers and Carolina Cowboys.
Both teams had three rides on the board, and the Gamblers held a 16-point lead with one rider remaining for each team.
The Gamblers were up first in the fifth frame – if they could get a score, it would be game over.
In the biggest spot in team history, Jose Vitor Leme lowered himself into the chutes.
Leme was here by design. The No. 1 overall draft pick in league history, the two-time World Champion has been the closer for the Gamblers since the team’s inception.
And now, finally, was the moment he’d been waiting for.
The Gamblers finished the 2022 and 2023 regular seasons as the No. 1 seed but fell short in the playoffs, bowing out in fifth place in 2022 and second in 2023, just one ride short of the championship.
Leme has been the league’s best rider for three seasons, winning the regular-season MVP award in both 2022 and 2023, but he couldn’t singlehandedly carry his team to the title and was never in a spot where he could win it.
But 2024 was a different story. Leme is a stunning 49-for-66 (74%) all-time in Las Vegas, and it was finally time to deliver for Austin.
As the crowd inside T-Mobile Arena roared, Leme rode Tijuana Two-Step for 89 points and the Gamblers’ first PBR Teams Championship.
It’s even sweeter after the failures of years past.
“That’s the best feeling right now,” Leme said after hoisting the world’s largest gold buckle and being doused with champagne. “I think, if we had won the first season, it was not going to be compared with this one, with this feeling right now, after we lost two seasons. We did so great the first two seasons, and at the end, we couldn’t clinch it. Coming from that, we started this third season not very well, not the way we expected, and we did the most important thing: come to the finals and win the championship. So this is a very, very special moment for us, for sure.”
Indeed, the Gamblers were a very different team this season. After acquiring 2018 World Champion and 2022 PBR Teams Champion Kaique Pacheco from the Nashville Stampede, many expected Austin to run roughshod over the rest of the league for a third consecutive season. But the Gamblers stumbled to a 13-15 finish, holding the No. 5 seed heading into Las Vegas.
Despite another strong season from Leme (25-for-37, 67%) and a rock-solid performance from Pacheco (19-for-33, 57%), plus solid contributions from Dalton Kasel (9-for-20, 45%), the Gamblers’ three-headed monster never materialized.
“I think it was just a bad season,” Leme said with a shrug. “Things were not happening, and I don’t know why. We had a great team all year, and we had great riders. Everybody was healthy. But things happen. I think maybe if we had a great season, we weren’t going to win here.
“I wouldn’t switch this feeling for that one,” he added with a laugh. “I’d rather have this feeling right now instead of having a great season, come (to Vegas) and lose like we did in the past.”
The hardships of the past may have also had some unforeseen benefits for the boys in black and green.
“Teams is completely different because you’ve got to work as a team,” Leme said. “It’s not only yourself. You’ve got to think about everybody. You’ve got to help and support everybody because that makes the whole difference. I think the first two seasons that we lost made us be better this season. We didn’t have the best season this year, but our team was more connected with each other. Our teammates were more helping each other, and we were a real team this season, even if we didn’t get the results that we wanted during the season. We did at the end, so that’s what matters.”
Leme clinched his 2021 World Championship inside T-Mobile Arena with the highest-scoring ride in PBR history – 98.75 points on Woopaa. Watching him punt his helmet and celebrate on the dirt again in 2024 brought back shades of that season, the greatest the PBR has ever seen.
“Oh, this place is special for me,” Leme said of T-Mobile Arena. “I have so many good memories here, and now I’m feeling so great because I’m healthy. I’m feeling good, I’m riding good, I’m not feeling any pain, and that’s the biggest difference of Jose right now. I’m feeling great, without pain, and that makes everything different. This was our last chance, so we had to give 300% of us to win, so I tried to give my best, and thank God I did and we got this.”
“That is amazing,” Leme said. “To be with Silvano, having that accomplishment in our careers, it’s amazing. It’s something that everyone wants to have, and it’s not everyone that’s going to get it. You’ve got to work hard for that, and I’m so happy and grateful to have that accomplishment.”
For Leme, the 2024 PBR Teams Championship is the latest accolade in what is one of the greatest careers in PBR history. The last time he failed to win a major title in a calendar year was 2019 – he won individual world titles in 2020-21, Teams regular-season MVP awards in 2022-23, and the PBR Teams Championship in 2024.
What is it that keeps him riding at such a high level?
“Honestly, it’s the thirst to win,” he said. “I don’t know how to put it in words, but it’s something inside of me that wants to win and be better every day; every year, do something different, do something that I won to have in my career. The past couple of years, I didn’t have a very great season on the UTB because I was fighting against a lot of injuries. And then now, finally, I’m feeling great, and I want to win.
“I don’t want to be just one more. I want to do something different and motivate people to do it, too, because coming from where I came from and being here, doing everything I did, that proves to everyone that anybody can do it. So that’s what I want to finish with – people believing in themselves, because if I did it, everybody can do it.”
Back to 100% healthy and with some shiny new hardware on his belt, Leme will be back in action when the Unleash The Beast kicks off with the PBR Tucson in Tucson, Arizona, on Nov. 15-16.
And you can bet he’ll be fighting for another world title.
“Of course I will,” Leme said. “I will be there, for sure.”
