Venla Luukkonen

Venla Luukkonen received her black belt in February 2014 and, a few months later, became the first Finn to win a black belt world title, at super-heavyweight, with Andrea Pereira in second. Four years later, in 2018, she was back on top of the division, this time with Carina Santi as runner-up, completing a run of six straight world podiums from 2014 to 2019.

Born on March 2, 1984, in Espoo, she moved to Kuopio at age 1 and tried athletics, floorball, dance and capoeira before starting Jiu-Jitsu shortly before turning 24 at Jyväskylän Fight Club, which competes as Hilti BJJ Jyväskylä. Trained as a primary school teacher, she pursued a PhD in Education while training part time. She received her blue belt from Kimmo Rautiainen in 2009, purple from Sauli Heilimö in 2010, brown from Marko Leisten in 2012 and black from Pedro Duarte on February 22, 2014.

Between her two titles she never left the Worlds podium: bronze in 2015 and silver in 2016 and 2017, when she lost the final to Tayane Porfírio by kneebar. In 2019 she took silver again, behind Claudia do Val. At the Europeans she collected silver from 2015 to 2018 and bronze in 2019 and 2020. At ADCC 2017 she was stopped in the quarterfinals by Talita Nogueira.

She has also competed in no-gi, beating Samantha Cook at Polaris 7 in 2018. A Tatami athlete for more than a decade, she keeps training and attending Jiu-Jitsu camps across Europe.