A small Australian activewear company has been shut out of IBJJF-sanctioned competition after a months-long back-and-forth with the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation ended in a rejection the brand’s founder says was written by AI.
Andrew Flynn‘s company, Alchemical Fightwear, based in Noosaville, Queensland, makes rashguards from a blend of hemp, organic cotton and a small percentage of spandex. Flynn spent weeks pressing the IBJJF rules department on whether his products could be worn in sanctioned competition. The eventual answer, delivered as an enthusiastic endorsement of polyester, was no.
Article 8.1.14 of the IBJJF rulebook requires that no-gi rashguards and shirts be made of
“elastic material (skin tight)”
and cover the torso down to the waistband of the shorts, but it never specifies what that material must be. That gap is what Flynn believed gave his products a real chance at approval.
“Our rashguards are not just cotton. If you feel how they stretch, they contain 5% spandex the same as other brands who use polyester. If you check the care label inside the garment you can see we are transparent about the fabric composition which is 28% Hemp 67% Organic Cotton 5% Spandex.”
The early exchanges seemed promising. IBJJF staff said their real concern wasn’t the fabric’s origin but whether a garment held a firm fit throughout a match without loosening into a safety risk. Flynn pushed back, arguing that Alchemical had spent four years refining its designs, and that athletes in synthetic rashguards get flagged at inspection just as often, not because their gear is loose, but because officials don’t recognize how natural fabrics look and feel.
He offered a compromise: send a few shirts for the federation to test in training, and if they still objected afterward, he’d accept the ruling.
The IBJJF agreed. Flynn shipped two rashguards to its Irvine, California office and waited.
What came back, after he had to prompt for a reply, was a lengthy, multi-paragraph email from a rules department contact, one that, in Flynn’s telling, read like anything but a genuine human assessment.
“They sent me an AI generated multi-paragraph email praising polyester. Talking about the performance benefits, how it’s so breathable and moisture wicking. This is desirable for sports and how natural fibers are not, you know, cause a rash etc.”
The email itself reads like a textbook rundown of synthetic fabric tech, describing polyester as
“engineered to actively wick moisture away from the skin,”
praising its resistance to mat abrasion, and dismissing cotton-based garments for soaking up sweat instead of dispersing it. It closes with one flat line:
“Your type of rash guard is not allowed.”
We were able to view the email and it definitely seems like AI. For starters, this was the only one of their emails that featured randomly bolded words in a blatant sign this was likely copy pasted and not actually written in the email composer.
Flynn wasn’t buying it.
“Your AI is clearly biased. It is obvious that a human did not write that response.”
He asked for the rashguards back. They arrived shortly after.
The irony isn’t lost on him. In May 2023, the Centers for Environmental Health sent legal notices to eight major activewear brands, including Nike, Patagonia, Athleta and Adidas, after finding BPA levels in certain garments more than 40 times over California’s Proposition 65 limit. The flagged items were leggings, shorts, shirts and sports bras, with the elevated BPA concentrated in polyester-spandex blends. BPA is linked to elevated blood pressure, cardiovascular problems and reproductive harm.
Dr. Shanna Swan, a leading researcher on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, has warned specifically about workout gear.
“There’s a lot of, particularly, it’s a problem for workout wear because you’re absorbing so much, you’re sweaty, you’re hot and you’re bringing these chemicals into your body.”
None of that made it into the IBJJF’s ruling. The federation’s written rules don’t technically require polyester, but its practical standard, enforced at inspection tables and now defended by an AI-written tribute to synthetic fiber, effectively does.
Flynn’s customer base keeps growing, made up largely of athletes who like his gear precisely for what it leaves out.
“We have a growing customer base of people who love training in our gear due to the comfort and chemical free nature of the gear. The icing on the cake was the AI generated praise of polyester and condemnation of natural fibres which is total BS.”
