Travelling time between school, home, work, other countries cost you another two years, Ali goes on.
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Last night Ali passed away due to respiratory issues, surrounded by family at a Phoenix area hospital, at the age of 74.
“Muhammad Ali could no longer boast he was the greatest; the slow, chunky fellow he had scorned as clumsy and flat-footed was his conqueror in perhaps the fastest-paced heavyweight battle ever fought”. Boasting a career record of 56-5, with 37 knockouts, Ali’s fights – to say nothing of his taunts – are legendary.
“It was a big deal for the Philippines, especially for Marcos, who had said, ‘We’re doing this fight because we want to show the whole world there is law and order, the people are happy, ‘” Nathanielsz told CNN.
In a heartfelt tribute Mr Obama revealed he keeps a pair of Ali’s gloves in his private study at the White House, and said we are fortunate that “the Greatest chose to grace our time”.
But that is only part of the phenomenon of the man, one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century, certainly among its greatest prizefighters, and beyond debate, one of the era’s most intriguing characters.
“Madiba had great respect for his legacy and spoke with admiration of Ali’s achievements”.
A British civil rights activist recalled on Saturday how Muhammad Ali told him he had more nerve than great rival Joe Frazier when he asked the heavyweight boxing legend to visit a London school for free.
Local Olympian Boxer Remembers “the Greatest”
“To be able to have a Muhammad Ali story for the rest of my life is incredible.”
Simply the sight of Muhammad Ali was enough to bring Angelo Dundee to tears. “I was really fortunate to have met him”, Shabbir said.
U.S. president Barack Obama, who was a small boy when Ali changed his name from Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, said the boxer “shook up the world and the world is better for it”. It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled, and almost send him to jail.
“Today we bow our heads at the loss of a man who did so much for America”. “It becomes more about the man”.
Ali’s motto- “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”- is well-known in China and he was hailed as a beacon to Chinese youth chasing their sporting dreams.
Reaction came in from around the world of sports, entertainment and politics.
Sports commentator Ronnie Nathanielsz, who was assigned by then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos to act as Philippine government liaison to Ali for the bout, said, “We lost a hero, a peacemaker and a truly charismatic human being”. “To put him as a boxer is an injustice”, he said. “Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far”.
A memorial service is scheduled for 10 a.m.in Louisville, Kentucky, Ali’s hometown.
A photograph of Ali and Mandela together sat next to the former president’s desk at his foundation, the statement said, and Mandela’s favourite book at the office in his later years was an autographed copy of the Ali biography “Greatest of All Time”. And just as his “songs of myself” were often misunderstood as mere pretexts for ring violence, so are modern-day rappers’ boasts too often construed as documents of urban mayhem.
Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942, as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, a name shared with a 19th century slavery abolitionist.
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“Maybe my Parkinson’s is God’s way of reminding me what is important”.
