A former Nigerian boxer and Olympic medalist, Nojim Maiyegun, has died at 83.
The death of the legendary boxer was confirmed in a Facebook post by Rudolfine F Soultan, a confidante, on Monday.
“My Jimmy died. I can’t say more about this right now because it’s just horrible. The day after tomorrow, we would have been together for 17 years,” the post reads.
A source close to the family of the deceased said Maiyegun breathed his last on Monday morning at his base in Vienna, Austria.
Maiyegun, who became visually impaired a few years ago, was reportedly battling an unnamed illness for a couple of months.
He was the first Nigerian to win an Olympic gold medal.
Maiyegun was 23 when he won a bronze medal in the light-heavyweight boxing category at Tokyo 1964.
In the second round of the competition, he defeated Great Britain’s William Robinson in just one minute and 59 seconds — a remarkable feat in amateur boxing.
He defeated Tom Bogs of Denmark in the quarter-final before losing to France’s Joseph Gonzalez in the semi-final.
Maiyegun and Poland’s Józef Grzesiak settled for the bronze.
Two years later, in 1966, he won another bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica.
Maiyegun left Nigeria in 1971 to begin a professional boxing career.
He fought 16 times and won 12 — 10 of them by knockouts.
