Amit Elor

Amit Elor established herself as one of the most dominant freestyle wrestlers of her generation, capturing Olympic gold in the 68kg division at the 2024 Paris Olympics and cementing her place among the sport's elite. Yet her relationship with grappling extends well beyond the wrestling mat. Elor began training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on and off from age 12, building a technical foundation that grew alongside her wrestling career rather than apart from it. She holds a purple belt in BJJ — a rank that reflects sustained commitment and genuine engagement with the art, not casual cross-training.

Elor speaks about BJJ as a technical extension of her wrestling identity. The two disciplines inform each other in her practice, and her fluency in both has produced a grappling identity that resists easy categorization. Where many elite wrestlers treat grappling as a single unified skillset, Elor engages each discipline on its own terms — bringing the same dedication to the BJJ gym that she applies on the wrestling mat.

Among the choices that define a BJJ practitioner's identity, Elor's preference for gi training stands out — particularly given her background. Many wrestlers who cross over into BJJ gravitate toward no-gi formats, where the physical attributes and positional instincts developed in wrestling translate most directly. Elor has taken the opposite path, expressing a clear preference for the gi and the additional technical options it provides.

She is drawn specifically to lapel work and gi-based submissions — areas of the game that reward patience, timing, and positional precision. These are qualities cultivated through years of high-level wrestling, yet they find a distinct and complementary expression in the gi. Her engagement with these techniques signals that she approaches BJJ as its own technical language, one she has chosen to learn with care rather than simply overlay with wrestling instincts.

When Elor competed at wrestling's World Team Trials on May 16–17, 2025, the full context of her performance was not yet public. She was approximately three to four months pregnant at the time — a fact that became widely known only after she announced her pregnancy on September 4, 2025. In retrospect, the trials took on a different significance: she had competed at a high level of wrestling while navigating her first trimester, managing symptoms whose cause was not yet fully understood.

During the trials, she experienced lightheadedness and shortness of breath — symptoms later attributed to low iron levels and anemia. The subsequent announcement reframed the narrative around her performance and drew widespread attention from both the wrestling and BJJ communities. Competing at that level of intensity while in her first trimester, without yet knowing the complete picture of what her body was managing, stands as a broadly recognized athletic feat.

In the early weeks of her pregnancy, Elor dealt with persistent nausea and hunger that lasted until approximately 14 weeks, alongside low iron levels that caused lightheadedness and shortness of breath during workouts. She gained approximately 35 lb (16 kg) over the course of the pregnancy, and maintaining any training regimen required ongoing adaptation.

Second Trimester Adjustments

As she moved into her second trimester, Elor shifted the character of her training rather than abandoning it. She focused on drilling and controlled grappling across both wrestling and BJJ, working exclusively with trusted partners who understood the context and adjusted their intensity accordingly. She continued flow rolling in BJJ with her fiancé, Mica Galvão, and maintained that staying on the mat felt healthy and appropriate for both herself and the baby.

Late Pregnancy and Return Planning

In January 2026, just four days before her expected delivery date, Elor was observed working pads at Black House MMA and continued running on a treadmill in the days that followed. Her plan, as of January 2026, was to resume wrestling gradually beginning approximately six weeks postpartum, contingent on how she felt. The mat remained a consistent part of her routine even as the intensity and nature of her training evolved throughout each trimester.

In August 2025, Mica Galvão announced his engagement to Elor, bringing together two athletes who represent the upper echelon of their respective grappling disciplines. Galvão ranks among the most decorated BJJ competitors of his generation, and the relationship has produced a distinctive shared training environment.

Throughout her pregnancy, Elor flow rolled in BJJ with Galvão as part of her adapted training routine. Training with a partner of his caliber in a controlled, low-intensity context gave her a structured way to maintain mat time and technical engagement during a period when the nature of her grappling necessarily shifted. The pairing draws natural interest from both the wrestling and BJJ communities — two athletes operating at the highest levels of their respective sports, sharing the mat and building a life that places grappling at its center.

Elor credits consistent training with keeping her grounded, and frames gradual progress and perseverance as foundational principles in both sport and life. Her willingness to train through pregnancy — and to speak openly about the physical challenges she encountered along the way — has positioned her as a substantive voice on athletic longevity and bodily autonomy in combat sports.

She has been direct in encouraging women to pursue combat sports without waiting for permission or certainty. Her message carries the same directness she brings to competition: "The sky is the limit. Don't let anybody tell you what you can or can't do. You are so much stronger than you think. Don't be afraid to try something. Don't be afraid to fail, and just have fun with it." Elor frames failure as a necessary part of the process and encourages women to engage with discomfort and unfamiliar challenges rather than avoid them. For Elor, the mat — whether in wrestling or BJJ — is a space defined not by limitation, but by possibility.