MOSCOW, December 21 (Sputnik) — Boxing superstar Muhammad Ali was hospitalized Saturday morning with a mild case of pneumonia, family spokesman Bob Gunnell said in a statement.
“Ali, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, is being treated by his team of doctors and is in stable condition,” Gunnell noted in a statement released Saturday evening. Gunnell said that “the prognosis was good,” and that Ali, 72, is expected to recover soon. The location of the hospital where Ali is being treated was not revealed, in accordance with his family's desire for privacy.
Ali, born Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, won the gold medal in light-heavyweight boxing at the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics at the age of 18. In 1964, he became World Heavyweight Champion after defeating Sonny Liston in a stunning upset. Shortly afterward, he changed his name to Muhammad Ali and converted to Islam.
The boxing legend, nicknamed 'The Greatest' and 'The People’s Champion', also made headlines around the world in the late 1960s for his protest against the Vietnam War and his refusal to be drafted into the army, for which he was arrested and stripped of his boxing title. Ali’s appeal to the US Supreme Court saw the conviction overturned in 1971. He went on to win the 1974 and 1978 World Heavyweight Champion titles.
Ali visited the Soviet Union in 1978 in a gesture of peace and goodwill. There he met Soviet boxing legends Viktor Agiev, Boris Lagutin and Konstantin Gradopolov, and also met with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the Kremlin. Ali also insisted on visiting the Soviet Islamic capitals of Tashkent and Samarkand. Upon returning from his trip, he told an American reporter that “one thing I found that keeps the Cold War going and trouble between the two people is each side [lying] on each other…and I think that someone should tell the truth sometime. I’ve never seen a hundred nationalities getting along in more peace…As far as what they believe or what they worship, that’s their business.”
For thirty years, Ali has suffered from Parkinson’s disease, which is common among people who have sustained serious head trauma injuries. Ali was diagnosed with the illness in 1984.
Ali’s last major public appearance took place in September, when he attended the ceremony for the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
