Titans of History

Cassius Clay, as Ali was named at birth, took up boxing as a twelve-year-old. He had an exceptional amateur career, winning 134 bouts and losing only seven. He went to the Rome Olympics in 1960 and won a gold medal at light heavyweight, impressing with his speed and lightning reflexes. The Miami boxing trainer Angelo Dundee took Clay on as a young professional and had little to do to improve his brazen style. He kept a low guard, relying on his speed to dance around opponents. Early in life he would proclaim himself “the greatest.” When he destroyed the great heavyweight Sonny Liston in two fights—the second a severe pounding in May 1965—it seemed that he was set to fulfill his own prophecy.

Outside the ring, Clay was undergoing a transformation that would shape the rest of his life. He became involved with Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam—a radical black Islamic movement. It appealed to Clay because of the racism he had experienced growing up in the Southern states of the USA. Soon the outspoken young man had changed his name to Muhammad Ali. By the time of the rematch against Liston and a subsequent savaging of another big-name heavyweight, Floyd Patterson, Ali was as divisive outside the ring as he was brilliant in it.

The combination of Ali’s extravagant fighting style, his forthright talk and his refusal to join the US Army in 1966 (“Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong,” he explained at the time) rapidly made him a hate figure for white America. He declared himself a conscientious objector, and in 1967 he was stripped of his world title and banned from fighting in America for three years. Undeterred, Ali delivered more than 200 anti-war speeches condemning the actions of the USA in east Asia.

When Ali returned to the ring, he took part in three of the most famous fights of all time: the Fight of the Century (1971), which he lost to Joe Frazier; the Rumble in the Jungle (1974), in which he reclaimed the heavyweight crown then held by George Foreman; and the Thriller in Manila (1975), which represented redemption against Frazier. In the Foreman fight, held in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Ali used his “rope-a-dope” tactics, hanging back for seven rounds and allowing Foreman to punch himself out, then countering in the eighth to knock out his younger opponent.

The Thriller in Manila is probably the most celebrated of all Ali’s fights. In the build-up to the contest he taunted Frazier with various slurs and poems. The two men battered one another for fourteen rounds, until finally Frazier’s corner threw in the towel. Afterward Ali said of his own heroic efforts: “That must be what death feels like.” He had thrown everything into an incredible victory, and—history having vindicated his stance on Vietnam—he had earned redemption in the eyes of the world.

Ali fought on until the early 1980s, by which time his powers had visibly declined. However, in spite of the sad end to his career, he is rightly remembered as one of history’s greatest ever sportsmen. Only the footballer Pelé and a very few others can be said to have dominated their sports in the same manner. World champion three times, he was the quintessence of glamour and glory in his sport, thanks to his skill and guile in the ring and his psychological mastery of his opponents.

But Ali was more than just a superb sportsman. He was a principled man who stuck by his beliefs even when threatened. Though his pronouncements on race were not always well judged and he could be cruel to his opponents, Ali transcended such indiscretions and won over almost all his critics with his bravery and charisma.

Since the 1980s Ali has been progressively affected by the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The sight of his quavering hand lighting the Olympic torch in Atlanta in 1996 touched the world; the transition from angry young man to symbol of world unity was complete. In 1999 he was voted Sports Personality of the Century. Despite his frailty, he still travels the world supporting a range of humanitarian causes.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI

Burmese opposition leader

1945–

The quest for democracy in Burma is the struggle of a people to live whole, meaningful lives … It is part of the unceasing human endeavor to prove that the spirit of man can transcend the flaws of his nature.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s words, spoken by her son, at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1991