Hamburg – Muhammad Ali can not simply knock out Parkinson's syndrome, but his long battle against the illness shows the same determination as in in the boxing ring where he became one of the most famous athletes of all time.
“The Greatest” Ali turns 70 on Tuesday and the Saturday birthday bash in his home town of Louisville made it painfully aware again that Ali is not a well man.
But even in the illness Ali has managed to captivate the masses, just as he did in his sport where Olympic gold 1960 in Rome was the early launchpad towards the heavyweight world title.
“Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” was his motto in the ring, but opponents also had to suffer abuse from “The Louisville Lip” who was stripped of the title in the late 1960s because he refused to fight in the Vietnam War after converting to Islam.
The legend lives on 30 years after his retirement, and those who loathed him in the past finally will have made peace when Ali lit the cauldron at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Olympic gold in Rome was the first highlight for the then 18-year-old Cassius Clay, who started boxing six years earlier because he wanted to punish those who stole his bike.
The medal has disappeared and legend has it that he threw the medal into the Ohio River after being denied entry into a restaurant in then segregated America.
Ali soon turned pro and in 1964 upset Sonny Liston for the heavyweight world title, announcing his conversion to Islam and new name the next day.
Ali's trademark was his unorthodox fighting style, dancing around the ring in what later became known as the “Ali Shuffle” and trying to hit only the head of the opponent.
However, the career was stopped abruptly in 1967 when he stripped of the title and his boxing license after refusing to fight in the escalating Vietnam War.
“I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong,” he famously said, but only narrowly avoided imprisonment.
The exile lasted for three years and while perhaps no longer as light-footed as in the past, the second stage of Ali's professional career brought the real fame from legendary bouts.
“The fight of the Century” against Joe Frazier, who died in November, at New York's Madison Square Garden resulted in his first defeat.
Ali later beat Frazier at the same venue and then also as underdog reclaimed the world title against George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa, Zaire.
But all this only set the stage for the “Thrilla in Manila,” the third fight against Frazier which took place on October 1, 1975, in sweltering conditions in the Philippines capital. The two pounded each other for 14 rounds before Frazier's camp threw in the towel.
Ali named the fight “the closest thing to dying that I know” and told Sports Illustrated: “We went to Manila as champions, Joe and me, and we came back as old men.”
Ali lost and regained the title 1978 against Leon Spinks and retired in 1981 after losing against rising Trevor Burbank.
Whether or not the countless hits against the head played a role is not proven to date, but Ali was a shadow of his former self in the final bout and diagnosed with Parkinson three years later.
The four-times married Ali, who has nine children, has named the illness a test of God but for a long time it did not stop him from undertaking various humanitarian efforts.
Former US president Jimmy Carter called him “Mr International Friendship,” a statement as precious as the various athlete or sports personality of the century awards he received from the likes of the BBC or the International Olympic Committee. – Sapa-dpa