{"id":359309,"date":"2024-02-27T16:41:48","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T19:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/antoine-jaoude-a-brazilian-lebanese-in-wrestling\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T17:14:35","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T20:14:35","slug":"antoine-jaoude-a-brazilian-lebanese-in-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/antoine-jaoude-a-brazilian-lebanese-in-wrestling\/","title":{"rendered":"Antoine Jaoude: A Brazilian Lebanese in wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Athlete Antoine Abou Jaoude is known for being a 23-time Brazilian wrestling champion and a major reference of the sport in Brazil, but he also holds a degree in International Relations, went to law school, was a football goalie and a volleyball player, worked as a TV sportscasters during the Olympics, owned a Lebanese restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, and speaks Portuguese, English, French, Spanish and Arabic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jaoude (red) during a fight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The oldest son of a Lebanese father and a Brazilian mother, Jaoude was born in Rio in January 1977 but was raised in Lebanon, where his father lived during the civil war. \u201cWhen I was six months old, we went to Beirut to introduce me to my grandfather, and because of the war, the trip lasted 14 years.\u201d He said that the family\u2019s adaptation to the Arab country wasn\u2019t hard. \u201cMy mother spoke French, so she had no trouble communicating. She became friends with my father\u2019s female cousins and fell in love with the country and its culture,\u201d he recalls fondly.<\/p>\n

It became part of Jaoude\u2019s daily life to grow amid the instability. \u201cWe played football, went to school, and when there were bombings, we went to the bunkers. Sometimes there were no classes for a period, then they resumed,\u201d he says. He describes his experience through those challenging times as formative and life-changing and emphasizes the resilience and solidarity of the Lebanese people in the face of adversity.<\/p>\n

Later on, he would spend long periods at a time training hard to get a spot in the Olympics. He represented Brazil in three of them: Atenas, Beijing, and Rio. \u201cWhen I didn\u2019t get a spot, I commented the fights on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fight that made him a champion is one of the world\u2019s earliest sports and maybe the oldest combat sport. According to the Brazilian Olympics Committee, it was already present in the Ancient Games in the 8th<\/sup> century BC, and there are drawings dating to 3,000 BC portraying the martial art.<\/p>\n

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Athlete: Tribute flag at the top<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Who first introduced him to the sport was his grandfather, who used to call him up to watch the broadcasts on TV. \u201cLebanon had three Olympic medalists in the sport,\u201d he explained. A first-born son, he later influenced his brothers and took Ralph Jaoude,\u00a0Adrian<\/a>\u00a0Jaoude, Daniel Jaoude, and Nicolas Jaoude to the ring.<\/p>\n

Antoine Jaoude is now father to three children \u2013 Patrick, 17, Vict\u00f3ria, 15, and little Theo, from his second marriage. \u201cI\u2019m loving to experience fatherhood at this age. When my older kids were born, I used to train a lot, and sometimes spent months in other countries,\u201d he says. Theo, he says, who is only five months old, \u201clooks like he is one year old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaoude has recently received a tribute as an Olympic athlete, having his face printed on a flag at the Jeunesse Arena, serving as inspiration for those who use the venue.<\/p>\n

Now at 47, he is changing careers \u2013 he owns a company (Sidon Group) with three other partners that seeks to secure an exchange between Brazil and the Arab countries, bringing and taking technology, knowledge and solutions across various sectors of the economy like the environment, goods and services.<\/p>\n

Report by Paula Medeiros, especially for ANBA.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Translation by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet the athlete who is a reference in Brazil when it comes to wrestling, one of the oldest recorded sports in history. Jaoude was born in Rio but spent much of his life in Lebanon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2343,"featured_media":358410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3066,109],"tags":[47645,47662,47663,47664,47652,47665,47666],"class_list":{"0":"post-359309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-society","8":"category-sports","9":"tag-antoine-abou-jaoude","10":"tag-brazilian-lebanese","11":"tag-jaoude-wrestling","12":"tag-lebanon-antoine-abou-jaoude","13":"tag-wrestling","14":"tag-wrestling-antoine-abou-jaoude","15":"tag-wrestling-champion"},"wps_subtitle":"Meet the athlete who is a reference in Brazil when it comes to wrestling, one of the oldest recorded sports in history. Jaoude was born in Rio but spent much of his life in Lebanon.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}