World Stage: An Olympic Introduction to the Greatest of All Time
At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, Muhammad Ali carried the Olympic torch and lit the Olympic cauldron 36 years after his Olympic victory. It was at these games that Ali was presented with a replacement gold medal, during the halftime ceremony for the Yugoslavia versus United States of America game on August 3.
Replacement gold medal is on loan to the Muhammad Ali Center from Lonnie Ali.
Replacement Gold Medal
When Cassius Clay returned from the Rome Olympics a victor, he was greeted with pomp and circumstance. Much of the city of Louisville, Kentucky greatly anticipated his return. He and his family rode from the airport to Central High School in a convertible, accompanied by a police escort of motorcycles. Hundreds of fans watched from the side of the road as they made their way downtown. Classmates and more fans waited at the high school brandishing signs welcoming him home. It was here that Clay announced his intention to become a professional boxer.
This celebration, however, was not shared by everyone, as Clay soon found out. Shortly after he returned home, Clay, his brother, and a friend went into a burger joint in downtown Louisville. They were refused service and told to leave because of the color of their skin. Clay was sickened that he could go to Rome and bring back victory for his city and his country, only to be met with injustice and racism. Muhammad Ali described the feeling in his book The Greatest, "I felt a peculiar, miserable pain in my stomach and head. The pain that comes from punches you take without hitting back."
Loathe to take off his medal prior to this, legend has it that Clay, after this encounter and a run-in with a motorcycle gang, went to the 2nd Street bridge and threw his medal into the Ohio River. Though it is not clear if this is true as the medal has never been found.
