Juliana Vieira Borges was born on 31 July 1977, in Goiânia, Brazil.[1] A competitive swimmer from a young age she also started Judo at age 12 under the guidance of her uncle Sebastião Borges and her father, a Judo black-belt.[3]
Between 1995 and 1997, Borges earned multiple state titles and the Brazilian Nationals with the Brazilian National League of Judo.[1] In 1997 she was promoted to Judo black belt. Two years later she won 3 gold medals in the Brazilian National Swimming League. While at University studying odontology she was introduced to Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) by a fellow judoka as a way to improve her judo groundwork (ne-waza), on her return home she continued training BJJ under Fernando Boi.[1]
She received all her belts from Boi starting with blue, she became world champion in 2000, then a second time the following year in 2001 while at purple belt, competing in the purple/brown and black division[4] after defeating Renata Pimentel in the final.[5]
Under Boi's training, Borges started freestyle wrestling, in 2002 she joined a workgroup led by Alejo Morales. In 2003 she became the first Brazilian woman to win the freestyle wrestling Pan American Championship.[6] A year later she won bronze at the 2004 IBJJF World Championship in the middleweight division.[c][7] She was promoted to black belt by Boi in 2004.[1]
In 2005 she joined ATT (American Top Team) moving to the U.S. to train under Ricardo Liborio as well as Jason Kelly a wrestling coach. Borges was invited to compete at ADCC Submission Fighting World Championship in the very first female division in May 2005;[8] after defeating Hannette Staack,[3] Megumi Yabushita[9] and Stacy Cartwright she won the +60 kg division,[10] she then defeated Kizma Button, Alessandra Vieira and Tara LaTosa to win the first Women Absolute (openweight).[11] Two weeks after ADCC she competed in a mixed gender[d]NAGA (Expert division) championship, winning gold. In 2009 she won bronze at the IBJJF World Championship after losing to Kyra Gracie in the semi-final.[1]