The ADCC Youth Championship is going to return for its second edition in 2026 and the promotion will be developing it even further by staging the first ever kids version of ADCC Trials. It’s still very early days of course and the promotion isn’t sure if they’re going to do either one or two different kids Trials, with more details on the dates and location of these coming soon. These tournaments will represent one way to qualify for the event and no doubt the participation in them will be massive, but the promotion is also offering young competitors another way to earn their invite.
The second way for young competitors to book their place in the event will be to rack up points at various ADCC Opens across the US and Brazil between January 2025 and April 2026. It’s obviously a clever way to improve attendance at those Open tournaments in kids divisions, but it’s also going to remove bias from the selection process too. The inaugural ADCC Youth Championship in 2024 was a huge success, but every competitor in it was hand-selected to participate. By removing any potential bias, it should mean that the children competing will be truly be at the highest level possible in their respective ages.
It’ll be interesting to see if ADCC choose to invite any of the reigning champions back as well, although they would obviously be competing in new divisions as they would have aged out of their previous ones. It’s great to hear that the ADCC Youth Championship is returning in 2026 regardless, and the addition of Kids Trials is the icing on the cake. It represents an amazing opportunity for fans to see the next generation of elite talent in action, particularly in the under 17 division where some of these champions may be just a year or two away from making it to the ADCC world championship with the adults.
ADCC announced the news that the ADCC Youth Championship will return in 2026 along with the first Kids Trials in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
