Safi Taha

A top national and international Greco-Roman wrestler throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, Safi Taha finished joint-sixth in the featherweight division of the tournament at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Two years later, in the same competition at the 1950 World Championships, he won a silver medal. It was Lebanon’s only podium finish that year, captured behind Sweden’s Olle Anderberg, the runner-up from 1948. Anderberg would go on to claim the gold medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics, but Taha withdrew after the third round, despite being in the lead prior to this. After a gold medal at a wrestling tournament in Istanbul, the Lebanese state awarded him an Order of Merit for his achievements in the sport, in addition to his work in popularizing it and making the country a center for wrestling prowess.

Taha moved to the United States in 1954, winning a national championship, and soon took up a coaching position in his new country in addition to publishing a widely-read and popular work on Greco-Roman wrestling. He later served as the coach of the Lebanese national wrestling team and guided them to five gold and eleven silver medals at the 1961 Pan Arab Games. His brother Khalil was also a championship wrestler who won a bronze medal in the welterweight division of the Olympic Greco-Roman tournament in 1952.