Ali: A true winner in sport & life

HE wasn’t just the greatest boxer and among the finest sportsmen of all time. Muhammad Ali was also a truly great man and an inspirational leader.

When he started his civil rights crusade, few took him seriously – just as they hadn’t when he began boxing.

His extraordinary use of language and unashamed boasting were dismissed as self-promotion. It wasn’t until he took a stand against the Vietnam War, at a time when it was still widely supported in the US, that he gradually came to be seen as a genuine man of principle who was as courageous in his beliefs as he was in the ring.

It is difficult to select one of his many sayings as the most significant but today, as we remember this extraordinary figure, the one we like to recall is what he said when refusing to fight.

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam,” he asked, “while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

For that noble principle, he was willing to sacrifice his career, his reputation, his fortune and even his freedom.

Eventually, of course, he was proved right and his stand was a key part of the struggle for civil rights. How wonderful that he lived to see an African American become US President.

It is not often we can say that we mourn the passing of a man who really was The Greatest.