Ana Vieira is a multiple-time IBJJF World Championship winner but recently revealed that she will never be competing at IBJJF Worlds again. It’s the biggest gi grappling tournament in the world and it attracts the biggest names in the sport every year, so it’s not often that competitors rule it out forever. It is becoming more common however, as the prize money for other events has been increasing over the years and IBJJF Worlds has remained fairly stagnant. For Vieira specifically, she is currently preparing to compete in the first ever female $100,000 tournament at CJI 2. Although she can get bigger prizes elsewhere, that isn’t actually the main reason that Vieira is forgoing IBJJF Worlds.
It all stems from what happened the last time she competed at the event in 2023, when she was choked unconscious in the final of the absolute division. Vieira started out by explaining how she felt about the situation in general:
“I’m not competing IBJJF no more after what happened with me in 2023. I think that their posture towards me as an athlete that dedicated my whole life to competing at their events wasn’t right. So I feel that I was neglected, and I don’t want to support a federation that treated their five-time black belt world champion like this. You know I’ve been winning worlds since 2012… for ten years going to the pyramid since my blue belt and after what happened with me; that was it.”
Although competitors being put to sleep does happen occasionally, Vieira’s was a unique and dangerous case for several reasons:
”My opponent got me in a choke and I tapped, you know many times, referee didn’t see and the way they handled the situation when… the way they put me up, I was really dizzy, I had like a concussion. They didn’t provide any kind of help, medical help. My wife was there in shock. She told me that afterwards that the whole IBJJF staff was literally just like that, looking to me, waiting for me to stand up and go to the podium. I was completely out, they didn’t want to call for the ambulance.”
Their immediate actions around the incident were bad enough but it was actually the aftermath that made Ana Vieira decide to never do IBJJF Worlds again:
“They never even reached out to me to see how I was doing. I got depressed, you know I stopped teaching classes at my gym. It was just awful. You know physically I was fine but mentally I was completely broken. And to see how they just, they didn’t care. That’s how I felt and I was like you know what, why am I gonna go there, do a lot of tough matches you know, show a whole generation ‘look come here, let’s compete worlds!’ but if something happens to you, that’s how they’re gonna treat you? I don’t feel comfortable doing that.”
The full interview with Ana Vieira where she explains why she will never compete for the IBJJF again is now available to watch on the official Jits Magazine YouTube channel, click here to subscribe for more or check out the interview below:
