Adele Fornarino - Top BJJ Black Belt

Adele Fornarino is a top Australian Black belt champion associated with the Dominance MMA Team under coach, David Hart. She is the number one N0-Gi black belt fighter in her division in the world. She won several gold medals in the IBJJF World, Pan Championship, European Championship, ADCC Trails, and many other international BJJ tournaments . She received her black belt in December 2022. She is the first woman in Australia to have participated and won several international gold medals.

Adele Fornarino is a top Australian Black belt champion associated with the Dominance MMA Team under coach, David Hart. She is the number one N0-Gi black belt fighter in her division in the world. She won several gold medals in the IBJJF World, Pan Championship, European Championship, ADCC Trails, and many other international BJJ tournaments . She received her black belt in December 2022. She is the first woman in Australia to have participated and won several international gold medals.

By following the footsteps of her brother, she started playing football at the age of 7 and was good at it.

Adele Fornarino continued playing football at the age of 10. Adele Fornarino took her first Jiu-Jitsu class by chance. At the age of ten, she was deciding what she wanted to be in the future. After thorough searching, she decided that she was going to be a Police Officer. To sharpen her skills she started searching for some martial arts schools near her school. Finally, she picked a gym and started going for Jiu-Jitsu training. She said in an interview about her emergence in the Jiu-Jitsu world, 

Adele M. Fornarino's first coach was David Hart at the Dominance MMA Team. Though Adele Fornarino joined this team to improve her skills so that they would be beneficial in her future job but it was David Hart who motivated and trained her and made her fall in love with this game. She said in an interview that she knew nothing about this martial art and used to ask stupid questions all the time. 

Adele Fornarino started her Jiu-Jitsu journey when she was 10 years old. At the age of 12, she competed in her first Jiu-jitsu competition and defeated two boys, winning her first gold medal. After this competition, she left an urge to be perfect in jiu-jitsu and took her training seriously after that.

After that, as she grew up, the brackets changed, and she was forced to compete in the white belt. 

Till the age of 15 Adele Fornarino was a white belt champion. In 2015, she won her first Blue belt at the Pan Pacific Championship. The Championship was held in December 2015 and Adele Fornarino played the fastest submission ever in the whole competition.

In the same year, another best thing happened in the Grappling Tournament Australia where Adele Fornarino brilliantly won and along with the prize money also got a free ticket to the IBJJF World Championship 2016. In the next year, she went to California with her coach and realized how big the Jiu-Jitsu world is.

In June 2018, when Adele was 18 years old, she participated in the IBJJF World Championship held in Los Angeles. She won bronze in the Featherweight Purple belt No-Gi Championship. She won the first three matches by submissions but unfortunately could not win the semi-final and secured bronze in the Purple belt.

Adele became the first ever Female Brown belt in Australia in July 2018, at the age of 18 years. She was the youngest brown belt in Australia in the jiu-jitsu World. After achieving the Brown belt, the golden period of her life started. She won gold medals in the IBJJF World Gi, No-Gi, European Gi, No-Gi, Pan American, and Adcc trials. 

Adele Fornarino competed at the international level for about 4 years as a Brown belt. After winning all the matches at the IBJJF World No-Gi Championship 2022 for the Brown belt in the Featherweight, Adele Fornarino was promoted to Black belt in December 2022 by her long-time coach, David Hart.

After achieving her black belt in the last month of 2022, Adele had a mixed feeling of doubt and pride. 

After becoming a black belt, Adele Fornarino started training even harder than it was before. She wanted to get the title of Gi in the IBJJF Worlds Championship. Shortly after, she won a GI championship and became the first Australian woman to get a GI title in the IBJJF World Championship.

After that, she participated in the ADCC Trails and won gold medals. In short, Adele Fornarino made her training tougher after promotion to black belt. She said in an interview sometimes it gets tough to travel from one continent to the other to participate in international events and sometimes they get overlooked as well.

In the final round of Sydney Open 2023 for the Balck belt category in absolute weight, Adele Fornarino competed with a top fighter, Amanda Iraha. Both the fighters demonstrated their best defense throughout the fight. The whole fight lasted for almost 5 minutes and neither of the players secured any points. At last, Adele Fornarino won the match by Armbar submission.

In the final stage of Pan No-Gi Championship 2023 for the Black belt category in Featherweight, Adele Fornarino fought with Vitoria Assis. It was a very short and exciting fight. In the beginning, noth the fighters tried to take down each other. But they did not succeed and secure any points. Shortly after, Adele Fornarino applied for Armbar submission and won the match. The whole fight just lasted for almost 2 minutes.

In the final stage of the Santa Cruz Open No-Gi Championship 2023 for the Black belt category in Featherweight division, Adele Fornarino Confronted Kaimana Newman. In the beginning, Newman tried to take down Fornarino but in no vain. After that, Adele Fornarino applied triangle submission which was brilliantly sustained by the Newman for a quite long time. In the 8th minute of the fight, Newman tapped out and Fornarino won the fight by Triangle submission.

Adele Fornarino v Amanda Iraha / Sydney Open 2023

Adele Fornarino vs Vitória Assis / Pan Championship No-Gi 2023

Adele Fornarino vs Kaimana Newman / Santa Cruz Open No-Gi 2023

Photo Credit: @adelefornarino