Our emblem
Three legends
Every Champions Elite athlete trains in the footsteps of three fighters who took Lebanese taekwondo where it had never been: the first Olympian, the first and only Youth Olympic medallist, and the fighter who came within one bout of an Olympic medal. They are the emblem of the academy.
Olympian · London 2012
Andrea Paoli
Born in Beirut on 2 May 1992, Andrea Paoli came through the Mont La Salle club under coach Bassem Aad. Lebanese junior champion in 2007 and bronze medallist at that year’s Asian Junior Championships, she went on to win the senior national title five seasons in a row. Her bronze medal at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou announced her on the continental stage, and in 2011 she was ranked eighth in the world.
She qualified for the London 2012 Olympic Games — the first senior Olympic qualification in the history of Lebanese taekwondo — and carried Lebanon’s flag at the opening ceremony. In the women’s −57 kg she beat Cuba’s Nidia Muñoz in the round of 16 before losing to Chinese Taipei’s Tseng Li-cheng in the quarterfinal. A year later she took bronze at the 2013 Mediterranean Games in Mersin.
| Olympic Games | London 2012, −57 kg — round of 16 win, quarterfinalist; flag bearer |
| Asian Games | Bronze, Guangzhou 2010 |
| Mediterranean Games | Bronze, Mersin 2013 (−57 kg) |
| Asian Junior Championships | Bronze, 2007 |
| National titles | Lebanese junior champion 2007; senior champion five consecutive seasons |
Youth Olympic medallist · Singapore 2010
Michel Samaha
Born on 19 February 1994, Michel Samaha won bronze at the 2009 Asian Junior Championships on Kish Island (−68 kg) and, a year later, carried Lebanon’s flag at the first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. In the boys’ −73 kg he beat Suriname’s Tosh van Dijk 5–4 in the quarterfinal and fell to Russia’s Aliaskhab Sirazhov in the semifinal, taking the bronze medal on 18 August 2010 — Lebanon’s first and, to date, only Youth Olympic medal, won while Dr. Habib Zarifeh coached the national junior and senior programmes.
He went on to represent Lebanon at five World Championships (2009–2013), two Asian Games (Guangzhou 2010, Incheon 2014), the 2015 Universiade in Gwangju and the Olympic qualification tournaments of 2011 and 2016, winning bronze at the 2010 British Open and silver and bronze at the Bahrain Open in 2013 and 2014.
| Youth Olympic Games | Bronze, Singapore 2010 (−73 kg); flag bearer |
| Asian Junior Championships | Bronze, Kish Island 2009 (−68 kg) |
| International opens | British Open bronze 2010 · Bahrain Open silver 2013, bronze 2014 |
| Major championships | World Championships 2009, 2011, 2013 · Asian Games 2010, 2014 · Universiade 2015 |
Olympian · Paris 2024
Laetitia Aoun
Born on 14 April 2001, Laetitia Aoun of the Mont La Salle club won Asian Games bronze in Jakarta in 2018 at seventeen (−53 kg), added bronze at the 2021 Islamic Solidarity Games in Konya and at the 2024 Asian Championships in Da Nang (−57 kg), fought at the World Championships of 2019 and 2022, and carried Lebanon’s flag at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
At the Paris 2024 Olympic Games she carried Lebanon’s flag at the opening ceremony alongside Simon Doueihy, then beat Chinese Taipei’s Lo Chia-ling and North Macedonia’s Miljana Reljić to reach the semifinal of the women’s −57 kg, where she lost to Iran’s Nahid Kiyanichandeh. Defeated by Canada’s Skylar Park in the bronze-medal bout, she finished fifth — Lebanon’s best result at an Olympic Games in any sport since 1980 — and became the 2025 national champion before qualifying for the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya.
| Olympic Games | Paris 2024, −57 kg — 5th place (semifinalist); flag bearer |
| Asian Games | Bronze, Jakarta 2018 (−53 kg) · flag bearer, Hangzhou 2022 · qualified for Aichi-Nagoya 2026 (−57 kg) |
| Asian Championships | Bronze, Da Nang 2024 (−57 kg) |
| Islamic Solidarity Games | Bronze, Konya 2021 (−57 kg) |
| World Championships | Manchester 2019 · Guadalajara 2022 |
| National title | Lebanese champion 2025 |
The next name
Mark Khalife (Asian Championships bronze, Beirut 2021) now coaches on the Mont La Salle team, and the 2025 national champions from our ranks are listed on the Achievements page. The path from a first white belt in one of our clubs to this page is the whole purpose of the academy.
Sources: official results of the Olympic Games (London 2012, Paris 2024) and Youth Olympic Games (Singapore 2010); Wikipedia athlete and delegation pages; TaekwondoData; L’Orient Today, August 2024.
