Claudia do Val

Claudia do Val won three straight world titles at black belt, and never in the same division. In 2017, her first year at the new rank, she won heavyweight over Talita Nogueira. In 2018 she dropped to medium-heavyweight and took gold, with Monique Elias in second. In 2019 she moved up to super-heavyweight and completed the run by beating Jessica Flowers and, in the final, Finland’s Venla Luukkonen.

She was born on June 1, 1988, in Resende, in Rio de Janeiro state, and grew up in Penedo. She came to judo at 18, inspired by her younger brother, and started Jiu-Jitsu at 21 with Ricardo De La Riva while studying engineering at CEFET in Rio. She competed little in her early belts and only returned seriously as a brown belt in 2015, the year she won Worlds and the Europeans. De La Riva gave her a black belt on December 17, 2016, after she came back from a shoulder injury.

In 2018, besides the world title, she won the Europeans at medium-heavyweight over Samantha Cook and Pans at super-heavyweight, and had shoulder surgery. In 2019 she took silver at the Europeans behind Luiza Monteiro and won a string of IBJJF opens in the United States and Europe before her third world title.

In 2020 she left De La Riva’s team and began competing for Soul Fighters, winning the Europeans in the master division. That year she lost to Gabi Garcia on points at BJJ Stars 4. Since the end of 2020 she has not appeared in the results of the major competitions.