Is Sarah Galvao the top pound-for-pound female Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) star today? She made a compelling case at the 2026 IBJJF Pan Championships, where the teenage grappling prodigy won double gold as a lightweight and beat two much larger, decorated world champions in the process.
Galvao won six bouts in the event, taking gold at lightweight and going an incredible run at the absolute division, where she notched two of the biggest wins of her career.
In the finals, Galvao scored a massive upset over the historic IBJJF Double Grand Slam winner Gabi Pessanha. The second generation BJJ star showcased her speed, skills and athleticism, as she constantly attacked the much larger super heavyweight, landing a takedown into back control to get the landmark win.
To put the win in better context, it’s worth understanding how the super heavyweight in Pessanha has not only broken (and created) records while winning every major IBJJF title multiple times over, her dominance also got her to 166-straight victories at one point. The best jiu-jitsu athletes compete so frequently that losses in their records are fairly common, but Pessanha is an outlier in that every rare defeat has made headlines.
In this tournament, Galvao not only beat Pessanha, she also beat Clay in the semi-finals. Galvao now adds two more gold medals from a major event, and two big — literally and figuratively — BJJ champions to her resume.
In the men’s side of things, Tainan Dalpra and Diego Pato won IBJJF Pans gold medals and kept their hopes of getting rare back-to-back Grand Slam titles alive. After winning every major IBJJF event in 2025, they’ve also now won their first two major titles of 2026.
Also taking gold at the event are Cole Abate, Jackson Nagai and Marcos Gomes, who beat the roosterweight tournament favorite in UFC BJJ’s Jalen Fonacier.
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