Joseph Atiyeh

Joseph Atiyeh

Joseph Atiyeh (born October 8, 1957 ) is a former Syrian wrestler . He won at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles a silver medal in free style in the heavyweight division .

Career

Joseph (Joe) Atiyeh's parents immigrated to the United States from Amar , Syria , and lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania . Born in the United States, Joseph was originally only a US citizen. As a student at Dieruff High School, he began wrestling as a teenager with his brothers Benis and George. At the same time he also played American football.

After high school he attended Louisiana State University , where he also took part in wrestling competitions. In 1980 and 1981 he started at the so-called NCAA Championships, the US student championship. An event that has a very good reputation in American wrestling because almost all of the major American wrestlers come from the student camp. Joe Atiyeh finished 8th in the 1980 NCAA Heavyweight Championships and 9th in 1981. He could not achieve any further success.

In 1984, in addition to his US citizenship, he also acquired Syrian citizenship and competed for this country at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles . Although he had never participated in a major international championship before, he convinced there in free style in the heavyweight division with victories over Vasile Puşcaşu , Romania , Kartar Singh Dillon, India and Georgios Pikilidis from Greece . So he was in the fight for the Olympic gold medal against the American Lou Banach , from whom he was shouldered. But he won the silver medal and thus the first medal that a Syrian athlete had ever won at the Olympic Games.

After this success, Joe Atiyeh received an offer from the Syrian government to return to Syria for a high military post. But he stayed in the United States and worked for the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge as a football professional. He did not participate in any other championships in wrestling.

International success

year	space	competition	style	Weight class
1984	silver	OS in Los Angeles	F.	Heavy	with victories over Vasile Puşcaşu , Romania , Kartar Singh Dillon, India a . Georgios Pikilidis , Greece a . a loss to Lou Banach , USA

Note: OS = Olympic Games, F = freestyle, heavyweight, back then up to 100 kg body weight

swell

• Trade journal Der Ringer , number 9/84, page 14,
• Database of the Institute for Applied Training Sciences at the University of Leipzig

Web links

• Joseph Atiyeh in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Profile of Joseph Atiyeh at the Institute for Applied Training Science