09/06/2026
I
🥊 On this day September 5th 1960 a relatively unknown 18 year old Cassius Clay wins gold in the light heavyweight catergory for the USA boxing team at the 1960 olympics in Rome. Ali himself almost didn’t make the Olympic Games due to travelling via plane and horrendous turbulence which he encountered for the trials in California for said games. He did board the plane to travel but only after taking a parachute with him in case of an accident. Never a fan of flying Ali did travel to Rome and did win the Gold medal, In his first bout against Belgian Yvon Becaus, the referee had to stop the contest in the second round, fearing a brutal knockout. His quarter final opponent was Russia's Gennady Shatkov, a man who had won Olympic gold in the middleweight division four years earlier. Despite his impressive pedigree, he was no match for the American - who swept to a 5-0 triumph on points. That scoreline was replicated in his next bout against Australia’s star pugilist Tony Madigan. Although Ali had to dig deep at times, he had made it through to the light heavweight Olympic final. Standing in the opposite corner to Ali in Rome’s Palazzo dello Sport stadium on September 5th 1960 was the imposing frame of Poland's Zbigniew Pietrzykowski. Pietrzykowski was stronger and vastly more experienced than his rival, and Ali initially struggled to adapt to his rival's southpaw style. The 25-year-old Pole edged the first two rounds, but in the final round Ali came to the fore. With his superior stamina and quick combinations, the American left his rival in a battered - but still upright - state by the final bell. The judges were unanimous once again. Olympic gold was his. Quoted afterwards as saying “I didn’t take that medal off for 48 hours. I even wore it to bed. I didn’t sleep too good because I had to sleep on my back so that the medal wouldn’t cut me. But I didn’t care, I was Olympic champion.”
