Helen Maroulis is the most decorated female wrestler that America has ever produced and now she has just added another title to her collection by winning the IBJJF No Gi World Championship 2024 at blue belt. Maroulis has won three gold medals at the world champions and even won one at the Olympics during her career in wrestling, but Jiu-Jitsu is a new sport to her. That elite background in another form of grappling obviously has a huge amount of crossover, particularly when competing in no gi as well. That’s not to say it’s a guarantee of success though, as anything can happen in competition.
Not only was this the first time that Maroulis had ever competed in Jiu-Jitsu, but she’d only been training in the sport for about five weeks during the lead-up to the tournament. When it first emerged that she was going to be competing at blue belt in the event, a number of people started to complain about the decision. To many, having an elite wrestler compete at the first colored belt rank seemed as though it might be sandbagging and could be a cause for concern. Just like anyone else though, Maroulis was only competing at the level that she was allowed to enter. The IBJJF has minimum time requirements for every belt level that made competing above blue belt impossible for her.
She wasn’t alone in this scenario either, as fellow wrestler Pat Downey also competed at blue belt and got disqualified after his final match. Things went much smoother for Helen Maroulis though, as she was able to win all five of her matches and take home the gold medal in the lightweight blue belt division at the IBJJF No Gi World Championship 2024. She represented Unity Jiu-Jitsu incredibly well too, showing off some slick submission skills that complimented the elite wrestling she already had. Now Maroulis is eligible to be promoted to purple belt thanks to recent changes in the IBJJF rules and it’ll be interesting to see if she chooses to continue a career in BJJ.
The IBJJF shared the news that Helen Maroulis had won gold in the IBJJF No Gi World Championship at blue belt in a recent post to her official Instagram account:
