Olga Bakalopoulos

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Olga Bakalopoulos
Statistics
Nickname	The Greek Sensation
Height	5ft 6in (168cm)
Weight	175lb (79kg)
Born	January 20, 1978
Fighting out of	Beverly Hills Jiu Jitsu
Town of birth	Toronto, Canada
Fighting style	Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Mixed martial arts record
Wins	14
By knockout	0
By submission	4
Losses	5
Draws	0
No contests	0

Olga Bakalopoulos (born January 20, 1978 in Toronto, Canada) is a mixed martial artist. She was born in Toronto, Canada, where she lived for 15 years, also living in Greece for 3 years (she is fluent in Greek). She now lives in Los Angeles, California, of which she says "it was always a dream of mine to come".

[edit] Biography

She states on a female bodybuilding site that "as a teenager I was always interested in sports and strength events", taking part in basketball, field hockey and soccer, among others. At the age of 17, she found inspiration in the female bodybuilder Nikki Fuller - "I thought and still think that that's the way a female is meant to look". She has worked with weights extensively since then, lifting 4 times a week.

She began her martial arts training after a friend introduced her to wrestling. Having competed in that sport, she later took up brazilian jiu-jitsu; she has been trained by 4th degree black belt Marcus Vinicius at the Beverly Hills Jiu Jitsu Club since February 1999. Bakalopoulos then moved into MMA during the year 2000 (she states in an ADCC interview that she started in 1998, but this may refer to her wrestling). When asked by Thomas Gerbasi about women in combat sport, Bakalopoulos replied:

"In every other sport you see women having a place. Women have as much right to be in this as the guys do. In the beginning, it wasn't all that great but now you have women like Lucia Rijker and Laila Ali, they're just phenomenal fighters. Every year the sport gets bigger, more women get into it, and they're saying 'hey, I can do this.' It's going to be awesome."

According to her entry on Fightergirls.net, she counts Bas Rutten and Marco Ruas amongst her former trainers.

Due to her beautiful appearance and her cosy nature, Olga had lots of fans all around the world. Olga was one of the best wrestling and MMA instructors in the world and transmitted her knowledge on several tours around the world. In 2005, Olga retired as a professional MMA fighter and no longer gave private MMA and wrestling lectures.

[edit] Career

1st Place Winner, California International on March 10, 2001 in CA
1st Place & Overall Winner, U.S. Open in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on Nov. 5, 2000 in Santa Cruz, CA
2nd Place Winner, World Wide Championships in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on July 26, 2000 in Rio, Brazil
Winner in MMA by submission at the Underground in Killen, TX in June 2000
Winner in MMA by submission at the Cobra Challenge in CA on June 2000
1st Place and Overall Winner, California State Championships in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on March 26, 2000 in CA
1st Place Winner, Gamness Tournament in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu