Rana Willink, daughter of retired Navy SEAL commander and leadership legend Jocko Willink, claimed gold in the absolute division at the IBJJF European Championships – submitting every opponent on her path to victory.
The triumph came shortly after a narrow loss in her weight class, where she finished third by advantage.
Her father proudly shared the news on social media, writing that Rana “lost by advantage at her weight class and got third”, before entering the absolute division where she “submitted them all and got gold”.
In a recent episode of the Jocko Podcast, the father-daughter duo reflected on the difficult years before.
Jocko admitted that his early coaching methods were driven by good intentions but ultimately backfired.
He made jiu-jitsu mandatory seven days a week, often placing his children in competitions against older and heavier opponents in an effort to “toughen” them, about which Rana said:
I don’t even really remember winning.
Her father now recognizes the cost of that intensity:
You go, you enter the tournament, you get smashed, it’s not fun, you get defeated, you get humiliated.
The outcome of all this bad behavior by me was you and your sister and your brother were just like: “We don’t want to go.”
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