Marcos Gomes

Marcos Antonio Gomes Guedes was born in August 2002 in the Dick/Dique do Vilar community, a low-income neighborhood in the São João do Meriti region of Rio de Janeiro's Baixada Fluminense. Like many Brazilian athletes who emerged from similar circumstances, Gomes found his path to jiu-jitsu through a community initiative — the Transformar Jiu-Jitsu Project, which operated directly within his neighborhood and introduced martial arts as both a sport and a social vehicle. Under the early guidance of coaches Carlos Eduardo Santos and Samys Lopes, the young Gomes demonstrated a natural aptitude for the sport that quickly set him apart from his peers.

The Transformar project gave Gomes not only technical grounding but the competitive drive that would carry him far beyond his hometown. Along the way, he earned the nickname "Carioquinha" — a term of endearment referencing his Rio de Janeiro roots — which has followed him throughout his career as a reminder of where the journey began.

Gomes' progression through the belt ranks reflects both exceptional talent and a willingness to make difficult personal sacrifices in pursuit of excellence. As a blue belt in his mid-teens, he relocated from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo, leaving his community behind to train under Cicero Costha on a scholarship. That move marked the beginning of a phase defined by immersion in elite training environments and mentorship from some of Brazil's most respected coaches.

It was within the Costha workgroup that Gomes crossed paths with Diego Oliveira — known widely as "Pato" — a senior figure within that circle who took the young carioca under his wing in 2019. Pato and his wife Sayuri Batista operated their own squad in São Paulo, and Gomes thrived under their guidance, earning his purple belt from the duo in 2020. Their mentorship sharpened his competitive instincts and helped him develop the consistency that would come to define his results on the IBJJF circuit.

The next chapter brought Gomes to Dream Art, where his international profile rose sharply. Under the Dream Art banner, he received his brown belt from Isaque Bahiense and began accumulating significant titles on the IBJJF calendar. His brown belt performances attracted considerable attention from the broader jiu-jitsu community, eventually catching the eye of Guilherme Mendes and his California-based program. By the end of 2023, Gomes had joined Art Of Jiu-Jitsu (AOJ) in Costa Mesa, California, as a brown belt — a move that would prove pivotal. On September 23, 2024, Guilherme Mendes promoted Marcos Gomes to black belt, completing a belt progression that had wound through some of the most respected academies in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

By the time Gomes reached brown belt, he had already established himself as one of the more complete competitors of his generation on the IBJJF circuit. His purple belt years laid a strong foundation: in 2023, he claimed gold at the 2023 IBJJF European Jiu-Jitsu Championship, posted a runner-up finish at the 2022 CBJJ Brazilian Nationals, earned bronze at the 2022 IBJJF World Jiu-Jitsu Championship, and collected podium appearances at multiple Pan and American Nationals events.

At brown belt, Gomes elevated his game to another level. His most significant colored belt achievement came in 2023, when he captured gold at the 2023 IBJJF World Jiu-Jitsu No-Gi Championship — a result that drew widespread recognition and confirmed him as one of the division's premier competitors. He sustained that momentum into 2024, adding gold at the 2024 IBJJF Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championship and the 2024 IBJJF American Nationals before his black belt promotion in September of that year.

His juvenile record offers an early indicator of how high his competitive ceiling appeared from the start. Gomes won gold at the 2018 and 2019 CBJJ Sul Americano, captured the 2019 AJP Grand Slam in Rio de Janeiro, and claimed the 2019 CBJJ Brazilian Nationals No-Gi title — results that foreshadowed the international career that followed. Across gi and no-gi formats, multiple weight divisions, and different age brackets, Gomes demonstrated the adaptability that separates elite competitors from merely good ones.

The transition to black belt competition can humble even the most decorated colored belt competitors, but Gomes wasted little time asserting himself at the sport's highest level. In his first major no-gi appearance as a black belt, he earned a silver medal at the 2024 IBJJF World Jiu-Jitsu No-Gi Championship — a strong debut that signaled his readiness to compete with the best in the world at 64 kilograms.

In 2025, Gomes continued his ascent. A bronze medal at the 2025 IBJJF Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championship reflected steady development against elite black belt opposition, and he followed that result with a gold medal at the 2025 IBJJF World Jiu-Jitsu No-Gi Championship — confirming his status as a world-class competitor in the Peso Pluma division (64 kg / 141.5 lbs). Competing out of Art Of Jiu-Jitsu (AOJ) in Costa Mesa under the mentorship of Guilherme Mendes, Gomes has built on an exceptional colored belt foundation to establish himself as one of the most compelling figures in his weight class at the black belt level.