NIGERIAN boxing legend Nojim Maiyegun has died at the age of 83.
The Olympic medallist’s death was confirmed in a Facebook post by his confidante Rudolfine Soultan today.
“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,” Soultan wrote.
Maiyegun, who won Nigeria’s first-ever Olympics medal, is believed to have passed away today in his Vienna, Austria base.
Maiyegun, who became visually impaired a few years ago, had reportedly been battling an unnamed illness for months before his death.
Maiyegun won a bronze medal in the light-heavyweight boxing category at the Tokyo 1964 Olympics to break Nigeria’s medal jinx.
Two years later, he won another bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica.
Maiyegun left Nigeria in 1971 to begin a professional boxing career, fighting 16 times and winning 12, 10 of them by knockout.
