Muhammad Ali

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1942, he took up boxing at twelve after his bicycle was stolen. He won light-heavyweight gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics, and in 1964 stunned the boxing world by defeating Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion at 22, announcing afterwards his membership of the Nation of Islam and his new name, Muhammad Ali.

In 1967 he refused induction into the army during the Vietnam War on religious and moral grounds, was stripped of his title and banned from boxing for over three years at the peak of his powers. He returned to reclaim the championship, defeating George Foreman in the 1974 'Rumble in the Jungle' and outlasting Joe Frazier in the 1975 'Thrilla in Manila'.

Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984, he devoted his later decades to philanthropy and peace work, and his lighting of the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996 became one of sport's most moving images. He died in 2016 of septic shock after years of illness. His legacy joins athletic genius to moral conviction: he remains, simply, The Greatest.

American heavyweight boxer, three-time world champion and civil-rights icon, whose brilliance in the ring and courage outside it made him the most famous athlete of the twentieth century.