Obama leads tributes for Muhammad Ali, ‘The Greatest’
LOUISVILLE: President Barack Obama on Saturday led a flood of global tributes for boxing legend Muhammad Ali, as preparations were made for a final farewell to The Champ in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
Ali, the three- time world heavyweight champion and colorful civil rights activist whose fame transcended the world of sports and made him an iconic figure of the 20th century, died Friday at age 74 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
The dazzling fighter — whose words, often delivered in catchy rhymes, were as devastating as his punches — had been admitted to an Arizona hospital earlier in the week with respiratory problems.
From political leaders to sports figures to Hollywood’s A-list, the world paused to remember “The Greatest,” whose remarkable career spanned three decades, and whose battle with illness later in life moved his fans.
He was to be buried in Louisville, with funeral arrangements to be announced on Saturday.
The city lowered flags to halfstaff in his honor early Saturday, as fans f locked to his modest childhood home, now a museum, to pay their respects and leave flowers.
“Muhammad Ali was The Greatest. Period,” Obama said in an unusually personal statement in which he said he keeps a pair of Ali’s boxing gloves and a photo in his private study.
The US president hailed Ali for his integrity, saying he “stood up when it was hard; spoke out when others wouldn’t.”
“His fight outside the ring would cost him his title and his public standing. It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled, and nearly send him to jail. But Ali stood his ground,” Obama said.
“And his victory helped us get used to the America we recognize today.”
Ali was hospitalized in the Phoenix area on Thursday with what his spokesman said was a respiratory ailment, but his condition quickly deteriorated, and his fami ly came to his bedside.
“After a 32- year battle with Parkinson’s disease, Muhammad Ali has passed away at the age of 74,” spokesman Bob Gunnell said Friday.
Ali had been living in the Phoenix area with his fourth wife, Lonnie, who he married in 1986. He was survived by nine children, seven daughters and two sons.
“He just represents everything that was good about mankind and it’s sad to see him go,” said fan James Brice outside the hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Fans also gathered in Los Angeles to snap photos and leave flowers at Ali’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Ali had been hospitalized multiple times in recent years.
In 2014, he was treated for a mild case of pneumonia and in 2015 for a urinary tract infection.
His Parkinson’s, thought to be linked to the thousands of punches he took during a career studded by bruising battles inside the ropes, had limited his public speaking but he continued to make appearances and statements via his entourage. — AFP