Aurélie Le Vern

Aurélie Le Vern was born on July 12, 1991, in Aix-en-Provence, a city nestled near the famous Côte d'Azur region of southern France. From an early age, her life was defined by physical challenge and outdoor adventure. She pursued an unusually broad spectrum of activities — rock climbing, mountain biking, skiing, roller skating, motorbiking, paragliding, and high-mountain hiking — building a foundation of athleticism that would later prove transformative in an entirely different arena.

That commitment to sport eventually shaped her professional path. In 2016, Le Vern completed a physical education degree at one of France's top universities, setting her sights on a career as a sports teacher. The French public school system is famously competitive, and while seeking a placement she accepted a position in French Guiana — an overseas territory of France situated on the northeast coast of South America. The move took her far from family and friends, into a remote and unfamiliar environment. Seeking community and a physical outlet in her new surroundings, she turned to martial arts — a decision that would redirect the entire course of her life.

Upon arriving in French Guiana, Le Vern found a local combat academy and began training judo, spending approximately a year on the mat in that discipline. The academy also offered Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes under the instruction of coach Tyrone Gonsalves, and her curiosity about those sessions grew steadily throughout her judo year. In September 2017, she stepped into her first BJJ class — and the sport immediately took hold.

Her prior athletic background gave Le Vern a meaningful head start. More than a decade of rock climbing had developed exceptional grip strength and fine motor dexterity in her hands and forearms — physical attributes that translate directly to BJJ's demanding grip game. Her years of cycling had built a cardio base capable of sustaining the aerobic demands of competitive grappling. The combined effect was a beginner who could absorb and apply complex positional concepts and submission mechanics far faster than the typical newcomer. That accelerated learning curve showed almost immediately in competition, setting in motion one of the more remarkable ascents in recent IBJJF history.

Every belt Le Vern has earned in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu — from white through black — was awarded by a single coach: Tyrone Gonsalves at the Six Blades French Guiana Academy. That continuity of instruction is a defining feature of her development, reflecting a relationship built on sustained trust and a shared competitive vision.

Her progression through the ranks was rapid by any standard in the sport. While simultaneously working as a sports teacher, assisting Gonsalves in running classes at the academy, and managing her own intensive training schedule, Le Vern competed at every opportunity. That demanding daily routine — teaching, coaching, and training stacked on top of one another — forged a competitive edge visible across all belt levels. She earned her black belt in just 5.5 years from her first BJJ class, a notably compressed timeline even among elite competitors.

The promotion itself carried particular symbolic weight. Gonsalves awarded Le Vern her black belt at the podium of the 2023 IBJJF European Open in January 2023 — tying the milestone directly to a moment of competition success and cementing the occasion in the memory of everyone present. Her affiliation with Six Blades places her within an internationally recognized team network, giving her competition profile a global context that extends well beyond French Guiana.

Le Vern's colored belt record on the IBJJF circuit stands as one of the most comprehensive of her generation. From the moment she began entering major tournaments, she demonstrated the kind of consistency across multiple events and belt levels that distinguishes sustained excellence from early promise.

Blue Belt Dominance

At blue belt, Le Vern swept the 2019 season with gold at the IBJJF World Championship, the IBJJF Pan Championship, and the IBJJF European Open — a dominant triple that announced her arrival on the international scene. She added a second European Open gold at blue belt in 2020, confirming that her 2019 performances were no aberration.

Purple and Brown Belt Campaigns

The purple belt division presented stiffer competition. Her 2021 IBJJF World Championship run ended in the final, where she finished in second place — a result that nonetheless demonstrated her ability to operate at the highest level of one of the sport's most contested events.

Her brown belt campaign may represent the peak of her colored belt dominance. In 2022, she claimed gold at both the IBJJF World Championship and the IBJJF Pan Championship, then closed out the brown belt chapter with gold at the IBJJF European Open in January 2023 — the same event at which she received her black belt. The breadth and consistency of that record across the Pan, the European Open, and the World Championship underscores a level of sustained excellence that is rare at any belt level.

The transition to black belt competition brought a new level of challenge, and Le Vern met it without missing a step. In her debut black belt year of 2023, she earned bronze at both the IBJJF Pan Championship and the IBJJF World Championship — strong results in a division populated by athletes who had been competing at black belt for years. Those performances signaled that her adjustment period at the sport's highest division would be brief.

In 2024, Le Vern collected her first major black belt gold, winning the IBJJF European Championship. The title confirmed that her trajectory had not stalled at the elite level. She also holds a victory at the ADCC Trials, connecting her record to the no-gi and submission wrestling circuit and demonstrating versatility across rulesets.

The demands of elite black belt competition led Le Vern to make a significant life decision in 2023: she placed her career as a sports teacher on hold to pursue full-time competition. The choice reflected both the rigors of elite black belt BJJ and the genuine ambition of an athlete who had set her sights on the sport's highest stages. She competes in the Meio Pesado division (74 kg / 175 lbs), representing France internationally.

On December 11, 2025, Aurélie Le Vern made history at UFC BJJ 4 in Las Vegas, competing for the inaugural women's featherweight title (-65.7 kg) against Raquel Canuto. Le Vern won via submission — a kimura lock — in the first round, becoming the first-ever UFC BJJ women's featherweight champion.

The finish was a fitting reflection of her competition style: technically precise, offensively committed, and decisive. The Kimura lock, a submission that rewards the grip strength and leverage sensitivity Le Vern had been developing since her years on the rock face, proved to be the closing statement of a historic night for women's grappling under the UFC BJJ banner.

In the lead-up to the fight, Le Vern appeared on JitsMagazine's JitsCast episode #54, offering a window into her training philosophy and the path that had taken her from a combat academy in French Guiana to a title fight in Las Vegas. The championship victory stands as the defining achievement of a competitive career built methodically across nearly a decade — from a first BJJ class taken out of curiosity in September 2017 to the top of the podium at one of the sport's most prominent emerging platforms.