The 2023 Vitoria Open took place on August 5th and 6th at the Ginásio Tancredão in Vitoria, Brazil. Some of the best black belts in the world competed at the event and put on electrifying performances both with and without the gi.

2022 Brasileiro Absolute Champion Gutemberg Pereira returned to competition for the first time since taking third at the 2023 Worlds. He went 5-0 in Vitoria and will compete next on Friday September 1st at the IBJJF Absolute Grand Prix. Gutemberg will look to best his second place finish at last year's Absolute Grand Prix, where he lost a very close match to Kaynan Duarte in the final.

The female open class champion at the Vitoria Open was none other than the 2X double Grand Slam Champion Gabrieli Pessanha. Gabrieli has continually looked better and better with each performance and she continued her amazing streak in Vitoria. She commented on her day, stating, “I didn’t have any matches in my division but I had three fights in the open class and got the submission in all my matches.”

Brasileiro Champion Mica Galvao returned to competition and competed on both Saturday and Sunday. He had three fights in the gi in the middleweight division. None of his matches on Saturday lasted longer than three minutes. He finished his opponents with a mounted triangle and two chokes from the back. Mica’s perfect weekend continued on Sunday, where he finished two more opponents via submission in the no-gi medium-heavyweight division. He finished his first match with a rear naked choke and his second with a triangle while utilizing a wide variety of techniques.

The other big winner in Vitoria was Gabriel Brod of Gracie Barra. His black belt promotion was less than one month ago and Gabriel proved that he’s already a force to be reckoned with among the sports elite. He won two matches in the gi at heavyweight on Saturday and then won five more no-gi matches in the heavyweight and absolute divisions on Sunday. “My debut was very good. I had a total of seven fights in the competition and managed to submit five of them,” explained Gabriel. “Until the end of the year I intend to fight as many opens as possible to score points and start the 2024 season well ranked for the Grand Slam championships.”

Eliza Vasconcelos also won no-gi absolute gold with two victories, finishing the final with a beautiful kneebar submission.

2023 Vitoria Open team results:

1. Nova Uniao

2. GF Team

3. Gracie Barra

2023 Vitoria No-Gi Open team results:

1. Nova Uniao

2. Gracie Barra

3. GF Team