Zara Di Tofano
Zara di Tofano is one of the most accomplished female competitors to come out of the Irish Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu scene in recent years — a young Black Belt out of East Coast Jiu-Jitsu Academy (ECJJA) in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, with a brown-and-black-belt résumé that already places her among the top names in Women's Lightweight competition globally.
Di Tofano trains in one of the most respected coaching environments in Irish Jiu-Jitsu. ECJJA was built up by Darragh O'Conaill, a 2nd-degree Black Belt and one of Ireland's most internationally accomplished competitors — a Polaris and IBJJF veteran whose own career has set the standard for the academy's competition programme — and is now anchored day-to-day by Head Coach Marcus Phelan, alongside fellow Black Belt instructors Neil McGwynne and Adam Larkin. That structure has consistently produced Ireland's most decorated competitors, and di Tofano is the most recent breakout name to emerge from it.
Her brown belt run was the foundation. In late 2024, she captured silver at the IBJJF No-Gi World Championship in the Women's Light division — one of the most significant international results an Irish female competitor has produced at coloured belt — and followed it weeks later with a bronze medal at the 2025 IBJJF European Championship in the same weight class. Those results, together with regular podium finishes on the Dublin International Open and the Irish national circuit, marked her as one of the most consistent finishers in the women's brown belt brackets in Europe.
The promotion to black belt arrived in 2025, and the transition has been smooth. Her debut season at the new rank included a finalist run at the IBJJF Pan No-Gi Championship 2025, where she advanced through the bracket — with a semifinal win over Amanda Bruse — before falling to Caroline Brunacio in a 2–0 final. That single run was enough to move her into the top tier of the IBJJF Women's Lightweight Black Belt rankings within months of receiving the belt, and she has since continued onto the IBJJF World and European Championship stages at the senior rank.
Her style suits the Lightweight bracket she occupies — patient guard work, high-percentage submission entries, and a willingness to compete frequently across both Gi and No-Gi rule sets. Her No-Gi record in particular reflects an athlete who is equally comfortable on points and equally dangerous in submission-only formats, with a featured appearance on Grapple Kings 11 in Dublin alongside her IBJJF tournament work.