Maxine Thylin

In 2017 the featherweight world final was settled inside Gracie Humaitá. Maxine Thylin and Ana Schmitt, teammates, closed out the final, and the Swede officially took the title, two years after winning Worlds at brown belt.

Born on June 5, 1991, in Sweden, she started Japanese jujutsu as a child and made the Swedish junior national team at 15. She found Jiu-Jitsu in 2008 with Ricard and Ralf Carneborn and Marcelo Yogui, and in 2010 left jujutsu to focus on the new sport. From that year she spent stretches in California training with Letícia Ribeiro and, in 2015, moved to San Diego to compete for Gracie Humaitá South Bay. Her nickname, Machine, began as a childhood misspelling of her name and came back because of her cardio. She studied psychology.

Her path to black belt included world podiums at every rank: bronze at blue in 2009, silver at purple in 2010 and gold at brown in 2015, after also winning the 2014 No-Gi Worlds and Europeans. Letícia gave her a black belt in June 2015. At the new rank she won the Los Angeles Grand Slam in 2015 and 2016 and, in 2017, before her world title, took silver at the Europeans behind Mackenzie Dern and at Pans behind Bianca Basílio. In 2018 she added bronze medals at Pans and the Europeans.