Israel Almeida has just announced his decision to move to ATOS in order to train alongside their elite team under the gym’s founder, Andre Galvao. Almeida was one of the top coloured belt prospects in the sport and won several major events during his journey through the ranks, including an IBJJF world championship at brown belt in 2019. He was promoted to black belt by his coach Julio Cesar shortly after that achievement and has been competing at the highest levels of the sport since then. He’s found a lot of success on the AJP Tour circuit, but has so far struggled to reach the podium of an IBJJF major at that level.
While he’s joining an already-impressive team, there’s a constant influx of top talent who change teams to get access to high-quality training partners and instruction. Israel Almeida has made the decision to move at a good time as well, as he will be representing ATOS for the first time when he attempts to conquer the featherweight division of the IBJJF World Championship 2023. It’ll be interesting to see where the change of teams can take him in his professional grappling career, and if he can make any improvements in time for the event.
Israel Almeida announced the news that he was moving to ATOS in a recent post to his official Instagram account. He made the initial statement in Portuguese and the rough English translation can be found below:
“A new journey has been begun. I feel very blessed, happy and grateful for everything I am experiencing in this new phase of my life, thank you, professor Andre Galvao, for welcoming me so well into this big family. I will be forever grateful for everything I experienced in the GFTeam, friendships, learnings and everything I achieved there. thank you. Oss.”
