Former Olympic weightlifter and Joe's Pizza founder Joe Haydar dies age 85 after being 'so sick' in hospital

The Australian fitness guru, aged 85, represented his new country at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. He came 16th in the men's weightlifting middleweight category at the Games.

Ten years later, when his fitness career had come to and end, he established a much-loved Perth pizzeria in 1974, first named Joe's Barnett's Pizza. The restaurant would later be renamed Joe's Pizza, and Haydar went on open several other restaurants in the area.

Joe's Pizza issued a statement on Facebook on Thursday (October 10) following his death. It read: “Our hearts are broken. The world is a little darker without our shining light, who has guided us with his unbelievable wisdom. Keep flippin those pizzas and making those chilli dogs. RIP Dad, Joe, Jido (which means grandfather in Arabic)”. They also added that Haydar was “forever smiling and oh so cheeky”.

The weightlifting star died on Tuesday (October 8). He was born in Lebanon on November 18 1938 but moved to Western Australia in 1973. His cause of death has not been revealed. His daughter has previously spoken of him being ‘so sick’ and ‘practically unconscious in hospital’, but it is not known if this was connected to his death. In an interview before his death, the restaurant owner revealed that his love for food was the reason why he got into weightlifting. “When you work in food and you’ve got to sample the food, I got up to 110 kilos,” Haydar said, speaking in an interview with Bunbury photographer Ben Yew's 100 Inspiring People Project. He said his doctor ad warned him "you better start losing a bit of weight".'

Haydar joined a gym as a resullt and found a new sport, weightlifting. “Unbeknown to me - I didn’t know anything about records or anything - all of a sudden I’ve broken Australian records,' he added.

After representing Australia at the Olympic Games, Haydar decided he wanted to pursue a different path in the food industry, particularly as there was only one pizza shop in Perth at the time. He was later credited for creating the 'Aussie pizza dog'.

Explaining the dish, he said: “Whatever you have in the pizza, you have it as a dog, you tell me (what you’d like). We weren’t selling that many pizzas, but we were selling 3000 of these a week. It just boomed on it and no one else could do it because it [was a] registered trademark.”

Haydar’s daughter, Andree, spoke about how helpful her father was to everyone in his commuity during an interview with The West Australian. She told the publication: “He just loved life, he loved helping people, he never had a bad thing to say about anyone. Anybody who needed his help he was the first one to go ‘okay, I’ll help you’ or ‘I’ll do that’. I’ve never heard anybody say a bad thing about my dad, not a cross word about him.

She added: “He just loved his grandkids, oh my god, even when he was so sick, he was practically unconscious in hospital, my niece... would come in and go ‘hi jeddo’ and his eyes would light up.”

Hayder is survived by his five daughters and his grandchildren.