Date of Birth
September 17, 1999
Birthplace
Melbourne, Australia (raised there)
Team / Academy
Team Dominance MMA (Australia), under David Hart; has also trained at Atos Jiu-Jitsu HQ to prepare for major competitions.
Belt
Black Belt (awarded December 2022 by David Hart, after nearly four years as a brown belt)
Belt Lineage
Carlos Gracie → Hélio Gracie → Carlos Gracie Jr. → Jean Jacques Machado / Rigan Machado → John Will → David Hart → Adele Fornarino
Weight Class
Featherweight / Light-Featherweight; also competes in the open/absolute class
Full Bio
Adele Fornarino grew up in Melbourne with no prior exposure to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. She played competitive soccer from age 7 to 14 before starting BJJ in 2009 at age 10 — a decision originally driven by a childhood goal of becoming a police officer and wanting martial arts training. Her first instructors were David Hart, David Christopher, and Lincoln Handcock.
She won her first competition at age 12, defeating two boys, and continued competing in mixed and adult white-belt divisions as she got older due to a lack of female opponents in her age bracket. In 2015 she won the Grappling Tournaments Australia event, earning a paid berth to the 2016 World IBJJF Jiu-Jitsu Championship, where — at 16 years old and now competing internationally — she won gold as a juvenile blue belt. That experience abroad convinced her to pursue jiu-jitsu as a full-time career once she turned 18.
Fornarino spent close to four years as a brown belt, during which she became one of Australia’s breakthrough grappling exports. Her standout achievement in that period was winning the 2022 IBJJF World No-Gi Championship as a brown belt in the featherweight division. She also competed at the 2022 ADCC World Championship, losing in the first round to Ffion Davies by rear-naked choke. David Hart promoted her to black belt in December 2022.
As a black belt, Fornarino continued building her reputation primarily as a no-gi specialist, winning Pan American and European No-Gi titles in 2023. Her breakout year came in 2024, when she won gold in two separate weight classes at the ADCC World Championship — becoming the first Australian to win an ADCC world title and the first to win the open-weight class. As of October 2025, she was ranked the world’s #3 pound-for-pound women’s no-gi grappler by FloGrappling. She has continued competing at the highest level of the professional no-gi circuit, including appearances at Craig Jones Invitational 2, multiple WNO (Who’s Number One) events, and the 2025 IBJJF World No-Gi Championship, where she reached the black belt finals.
Alongside no-gi, Fornarino has stated an explicit goal of becoming the first native-born Australian to win an IBJJF black belt World Championship in the gi, an accomplishment that has so far eluded her. She has also expressed interest in eventually competing in MMA, though she has said her current focus remains fully on jiu-jitsu.
Achievements
- ADCC World Championship gold medalist — two weight classes (2024), first Australian to win ADCC gold and first to win the open weight class
- IBJJF World No-Gi Champion — brown belt, featherweight (2022)
- IBJJF Pan American No-Gi Champion — black belt (2023)
- IBJJF European No-Gi Champion — black belt (2023)
- Grappling Tournaments Australia champion (2015)
- IBJJF World Championship gold medalist — juvenile blue belt (2016)