Stephanie Faure

Stéphanie Caroline Delphine Faure is a French grappler with international titles in both judo and jiu-jitsu, holding black belts in both sports. After a lifetime as a top-end judo player, Stéphanie Faure shifted her competitive career to BJJ in the late 2010s, where she conquered numerous medals, particularly in the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) and Abu Dhabi Jiu-Jitsu Pro Tour (AJP), while representing her country and Team Checkmat.

Stéphanie Faure Jiu-Jitsu

Full Name: Stéphanie Caroline Delphine Faure

Nickname: N/A

Lineage: Carlos Gracie > Helio Gracie > Carlson Gracie > Ricardo De La Riva > Carlos Lima > Sebastian Lalli > Stéphanie Faure

Main Achievements:

• 1st Place CFJJB French Nationals (2024 / 2025**)
• 2nd Place IBJJF European Championship (2025)
• 3rd Place IBJJF World Championship (2024)
• 2nd Place AJP Grand Slam, LDN (2025)
• 3rd Place AJP Grand Slam, ROM (2024 / 2025)

Main Achievements (Colored Belts):

• 1st Place CBJJ Brazilian Nationals (2019 purple)
• 2nd Place IBJJF World Championship (2019 purple)
• 3rd Place IBJJF European Championship (2022** / 2023 brown)

* Absolute
** Weight and Absolute

Judo Main Achievements:

• 1st Place French Seniors Semi-Finals (2014 / 2018)
• 1st Place Tournament Rochefort – Label B (2012)
• 2nd Place International Tournament – Label A (2014)
• 2nd Place FJJA Individual Seniors Tournament (2014)
• 3rd Place European Club Championships (2015)
• 3rd Place French University Championships (2012)

Favorite Position/Technique: Outside Passing

Weight Division: Peso Leve (64 kg / 141.5 lbs)

Team/Association: Checkmat

Stéphanie Faure Biography

Stéphanie Faure was born in October 1990, in Limoges, France, growing up 40 kilometers from the city, in the countryside, on her parents’ farm.

When she was 9, Stephanie started practicing judo at a local club. She immediately fell in love with the sport and slowly progressed into the competitive arena. She maintained a 2-training sessions per week schedule up until her 12th birthday, a time when she joined a judo training centre and became a member of France’s national judo circuit, travelling across the country and receiving her black belt in 2006, at age 16.

When she became a Junior division competitor (16), Faure joined a Bordeaux training centre, where her career blossomed. 2 years later, with judo national titles under her belt, Stephanie moved to Orléans to study engineering and continued her training there, becoming a member of France’s National Judo Team at the junior level, earning many international medals along the way.

Stephanie completed her degree in 2013, and two and a half years later, she had saved enough money to fulfill her goal of taking a one-year hiatus to travel the world. Despite spending plenty of time in Brazil, a country with a heavy judo culture, Faure was suffering from many injuries from the years of competing in judo, and stopped training at this point.

In January 2017, Faure was invited to work in Frutillar, Chile. It was there, while jogging at a local beach, that she saw some locals grappling. She interacted with the group, and after finding out she had played judo, they invited her to their jiu-jitsu club (Dojo) under the instruction of Daniel Carcamo, who was a BJJ purple belt at the time. Having mostly recovered from her injuries, Stephanie decided to risk training and immediately fell in love with jiu-jitsu.

In a couple of months, Stephanie earned her blue belt from coach Carcano (with the approval of team leader Mário Napadensky) and, upon her return to France in September 2017, she continued training with Emmanuel “Pythagoreˮ Fernandez, from whom she received her purple belt (06/ 2018).

In September 2018, Stephanie decided to volunteer for an international contract in the French enterprise VIE in Brazil with the intent of training and learning jiu-jitsu in the origins of this sport. There, she joined the Checkmat  Equipe 1, under coach Sebastian Lalli. It was at the Equipe 1 academy that she met Marcelo Bruno De Souza, who later became her husband and instructor, and with whom she had her daughter. De Souza and Faure lived together in Brazil for 3 years, where Faure trained and competed extensively, leading to her brown belt promotion from Sebastian Lalli in 2020.

In the summer of 2021, Faure and De Souza moved to France and opened their own academy in 2022, in Limoges. Coach Marcelo de Souza became an important figure in Stephanie’s development in the sport, and it was he who promoted Stephanie Faure to the black belt rank on July 13, 2023, with the full endorsement of Sebastian Lalli.