“Sixteen years in the making, with everything that happened, it just makes it even better.
“I think people mistook Charles’ success, I think they always thought that I was in his shadow, but like I’ve said, we’re two different (people),” continued Jourdain, echoing sentiments he shared at his media availability following his win on the final day of September and sentiments that are familiar to every younger brother that has followed a comparable path to their older sibling. “It’s because we’re brothers that everybody needs to compare me to him, but it definitely feels good to prove to the big brother that I also can do it. I always had a chip on my shoulder to do the same thing as him, so it feels good now.”
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Like most brothers, the Jourdains, who are 15 months and 15 days apart in age, had their battles during their youth, which carried over in the training room as they began their parallel journeys into the sport.
But they quickly learned they were better off working together than constantly battling each other, which continues to be the case today.
“First of all, I can never tell Charles what to do since he’s my big brother; he needs to tell me what to do, so that was the dynamic,” began the younger Jourdain, sharing another all-too-familiar dynamic for any younger sibling, me included. “What surprised people a little bit was that we were always training together, but it was hard because there was so much ego involved.
“When we were sparring, we couldn’t spar together because we would just throw down. As soon as I threw a little bit hard, he would throw harder, and it would end up in a war. We were training together, but not together, together; always in the same room, but it was a little difficult at first. We learned we’re more here to help each other than to compare (ourselves against one another).
“As soon as we learned that, we started training more together, and we became better because of that,” he added. “It’s always better as a team.”