A battle between two top teenage contenders took place at the IBJJF Pan Championship 2025, as Sarah Galvao and Helena Crevar met in the brown belt absolute division. Even though both women are still young, they’ve both managed to beat several black belt veterans already. They’re well-established at the top of the sport and will be elite competitors for many years to come, so a match between them was always going be a big moment. Galvao and Crevar usually compete in different weight classes though, so it’s not as if fans are going to see them meet on the mats all that often either.
It was an even more important moment this time around too, because both women were on the hunt for their second gold medal at the event. Galvao was originally competing at lightweight and Crevar at medium-heavyweight, with both of them standing on top of the podium in their respective divisions. Galvao beat Selma Vik and Larissa Santos to win her title while Crevar beat Aghata Fernandes and Gabriela Barroso, so they both had to get past some tough opponents already. Crevar then beat Maria Loreiro in the opening round of the absolute, but Galvao had a bye straight through to the quarter-final against her.
Galvao put on a passing clinic throughout their match and used the same stack passing technique that her father Andre Galvao was known for throughout his career. She scored her first points with a pass in the first few minutes and didn’t really look in trouble at any point, passing again towards the end of the match to win 6-0 on points. That meant that Crevar left empty-handed in the absolute, and Galvao was guaranteed a medal by going through to the semi-finals. She actually lost to the super-heavyweight silver medalist Luane Correia in the next match and had to settle for a bronze medal in the absolute in the end.
The full IBJJF Pan Championship 2025 event replay, including Sarah Galvao vs Helena Crevar, is available to watch on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch. FloGrappling also uploaded the footage of the full match to their official YouTube channel:
