🥊 Muhammad Ali

The Stolen Bicycle

Cassius Clay was born on 17 January 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. At 12, his beloved red bicycle was stolen. Furious, he told police officer Joe Martin he would 'whup' the thief. Martin, who ran a boxing gym, replied: 'You better learn to fight first.' The angriest kid in Louisville became the hardest-working boxer in the gym — racing the school bus on foot every morning.

Float Like a Butterfly

Olympic gold at 18 (Rome, 1960). Then, at 22, he shocked the world by beating the 'unbeatable' Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion — dancing, hands down, faster than any big man ever seen: 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.' Soon after, he embraced Islam and took the name Muhammad Ali. His fights became epics: the 'Rumble in the Jungle' (1974), where his rope-a-dope tactic exhausted the fearsome George Foreman, and the brutal 'Thrilla in Manila' against Joe Frazier. He became the first man to win the heavyweight crown three times.

The Fight Outside the Ring

In 1967, at his peak, Ali refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War on grounds of conscience. The price: stripped of his title, banned from boxing for over three years, facing prison — he lost his best sporting years but never wavered. The Supreme Court cleared him in 1971, and history sided with him. Later, battling Parkinson's disease for 32 years, his shaking hands lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta 1996 — perhaps sport's most moving moment.

What We Can Learn

• Channel anger into training — the bicycle thief created The Greatest.
• Confidence is a skill: he said he was the greatest 'even before I knew I was.'
• Titles can be taken; principles cannot — unless you surrender them.