Muhammad Ali

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Impossible not to start from that image and that sentence.
If tomorrow we had to choose 5 iconic images to represent the sport of the 20th century we would choose the one for sure, that of Michael Jordan in Salt Lake City and 3 others to be defined. Those 2 would be present by default.
What if we had to choose a phrase related to a sportsman? Well, the one above is essential, fundamental. Essential.
We're talking about Muhammad Ali of course, Cassius Clay in another life.
Ali is the ultimate sportsman, the one who has been unbeatable in and out of the ring.
A life like a movie, an Oscar-winning movie.
A life where civil commitment and talent have merged to form a transcendent entity from that same agile and powerful body.

Don't count the days. Make the days count.

That's what he said, but it's mostly what he did. Every meeting, every statement he made, every public moment he made has inspired generations.
Muhammad Ali is a man who never backed down. When there was fighting to be done, he fought.
In the ring, against his all-time opponents, when boxing was considered THE SPORT and not today's pantomime.
And outside, when there was racial hatred, military service, war, persecution.
He was Muhammad Ali and to beat him you had to knock him out, KO, and make sure he wouldn't get up for hours.

Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing

He anticipates Nike's publicity with a phrase that only he could have said and above all demonstrate in all its consistency. Kinshasa teaches.
Impossible is nothing.
At least for him.
It was above all his mental strength, ingenuity and patience that would allow him to beat anyone at any time.
Impressive hits, but also the ability to cash in, wait for the opponent, make him tired and knock him out.
Only Parkinson beat him and that was a stronger opponent than him.
And yet even when his body had begun to abandon him, his mind accompanied him towards majestic goals.
The Atlanta Olympics saw him as the last torchbearer, with that torch that lit one of the most brilliant competitions in Olympic history.
To tell Ali would take months, years, books, movies, stories, videos.
And in fact of Muhammad Ali we have many, many, many indelible moments that each of us carries within ourselves.
A sports monument that still lives today a few years after his death at 74 years of age.
One wonders what he would have said about this beloved and damned America of his.
That of the white supremacists and red jackets, that of Trump and Fox News. The rights they trampled on, the George Floyd, the violence of the police who were supposed to protect the likes of him.
Several.
And that doesn't make it worse.
As he's proven, all his life...