Vinícius do Canto Martins

Vinícius Martins was born on September 21, 1996, in Porto Alegre, the capital of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Like countless Brazilian children of his generation, his earliest competitive sporting experiences were shaped by football, which he played for school and local teams throughout his childhood. That path shifted decisively in 2009 when his older brother enrolled at a jiu-jitsu gym led by coach Rodrigo Claus, known within the Porto Alegre grappling community as "Sem." The brothers were close, and within a month, Vinícius was asking his parents for permission to follow him onto the mats — a request they granted without hesitation.

Jiu-jitsu took hold quickly. Martins discovered in the sport a sense of personal empowerment and practical self-defense capability that football had never offered him. By the age of 12, he had abandoned soccer entirely, redirecting all of his extra-curricular energy toward grappling. His early development unfolded under the direct instruction of Rodrigo Claus and Iuri Cilenti, within the broader training environment of Alliance Porto Alegre, where head instructor Mario Reis oversaw the program from the outset. That foundational structure — Claus and Cilenti handling day-to-day instruction while Reis shaped the culture and direction of the program — set the tone for Martins' entire development as a competitor.

Building a Competitive Foundation

Martins progressed through his junior belts under the guidance of Rodrigo Claus and Iuri Cilenti, with Mario Reis assuming a more direct instructional role as Martins reached his green belt. The shift reflected both his growing seriousness as a practitioner and his evolving place within the Alliance Porto Alegre program.

His early competitive results signaled what was to come. At the 2014 CBJJ Brazilian Nationals, he earned a bronze medal in the blue belt division — a meaningful debut on the national circuit. The following year, he stepped onto the podium at the 2015 IBJJF World Championship, claiming bronze in the blue belt category, a notable result for a competitor still in the formative stages of his career.

Adversity and Return

The trajectory was disrupted shortly after Martins received his purple belt promotion. A severe knee injury sidelined him for nearly two years, testing not only his physical resilience but his commitment to the sport at a stage when many athletes step back permanently. Martins did not. He returned to competition in 2017, restructuring his approach by splitting training time with academic studies at a local university in Porto Alegre — a balance that reflected his determination to pursue both personal and athletic development simultaneously.

His return to major IBJJF competition in 2019 was an immediate statement of intent. That year, Martins collected bronze at the IBJJF European Open at purple belt, followed by another bronze at the 2019 IBJJF World Championship in the same division. A third-place finish at the 2019 CBJJ Brazilian Nationals rounded out a year that demonstrated his ability to perform consistently at the highest levels of colored belt competition. The resilience he showed in rebuilding competitive momentum after the knee injury became one of the defining characteristics of his story as an athlete.

Establishing Elite-Level Consistency

Competing in the Meio Pesado division (88.30 kg / 195.0 lbs), Martins' brown belt career established him as one of the most consistently dangerous competitors at that level in international jiu-jitsu. At the 2020 IBJJF World Championship, he reached the final and finished as runner-up — a result that confirmed his standing at the top of the division. He returned to that same stage in 2021, again reaching the final and again finishing as runner-up, demonstrating remarkable consistency across back-to-back editions of the sport's most prestigious event. The 2021 CBJJ Brazilian Nationals further reinforced his brown belt record, where he claimed second place once more, underscoring how reliably he performed across both international and domestic competition.

Black Belt Promotion

Three years of podium finishes at major IBJJF and CBJJ events built an unambiguous case for advancement. In July 2022, Mario Reis awarded Vinícius Martins his black belt — a promotion that recognized not only the competitive record he had assembled, but the full arc of his development as a practitioner. From the 12-year-old who walked into Rodrigo Claus's gym following his older brother, through a serious injury that could have ended his career, to two consecutive World Championship finals at brown belt, the promotion marked the formal beginning of a new chapter under the Alliance Porto Alegre banner — built on a foundation that had been years in the making.