Elisabeth Clay on the Gi Worlds title she still needs to win
A runner-up in the last two Worlds finals, she competes at lightweight at The Crown on November 8 and told VF Comunica about her 2025 loss and the No-Gi label.
Elisabeth Clay knows which title is missing from her résumé. A four-time No-Gi world champion, she has reached the last two IBJJF Gi World Championship finals and lost both. Ahead of The Crown, set for November 8 at the Pyramid in Long Beach, California, she spoke exclusively with VF Comunica and was clear about her priority: “Gi worlds is my big one I still need to win.”
She does not see those losses as failures. “But it happens, the fact that I’m making it to the finals 3 times, twice in a row says a lot. And I’ll just keep doing it regardless of if I win or not,” she said.
At middleweight, Elisabeth lost the 2025 final to Thalyta Silva on an advantage and the 2026 final to Lillian Marchand, who also beat her in this year’s Pans final.
Lightweight by necessity
At The Crown, Elisabeth drops to lightweight again, as she did last year. She says the move has less to do with strategy and more with the format, which has only two women’s divisions. “Um it’s less of a tactic me dropping to light weight from middle and more so I don’t really have another option unless I wanted to go all the way up to super heavy as the girls only get 2 divisions for the crown,” she said.
As for the bracket, which includes world champions and defending champion Sarah Galvão, she is not running the numbers. “I don’t really look at a bracket too closely at least until I know exactly who I’m fighting.”
The 2025 loss
In her Crown debut last year, Elisabeth lost in the quarterfinals to Bianca Basílio, 7-4. She sums up the match with one early moment. “I made a mistake in the beginning of the match and when you do that, it’s really hard to come back from it,” she said.
The No-Gi label
Her No-Gi results shape how people see her. She won the IBJJF No-Gi Worlds in 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025, when she took both her division and the open class, beating Gabi Pessanha in the open class final. She thinks that made many people forget where she comes from. “Definitely. I think a lot of people think of me as a Nogi person, I’ve always thought it was funny because I train mostly GI and have always done most of the big ibjjf competitions since literally juvenile blue belt. But at this point I’m used to it,” she said.
Her Gi résumé is long too. She won the Pans in 2023 and the Brazilian Nationals in 2025 and 2026, all at middleweight.
The Crown’s lightweight bracket has eight athletes: Elisabeth, Sarah Galvão, Janaína Lebre, Sabrina Gondim, Keanna Klay, Ághata Rabelo, Nikolett Kis and Giovanah Oliveira.
Will Elisabeth Clay win the lightweight title at The Crown? Let us know in the comments.
Read more
- Keanna Klay heads to The Crown with no pressure as an underdog
- Sarah Galvão returns to defend her Crown lightweight title
- Gabi Pessanha chases fourth straight Crown title vs. Anabel
