Ali has no role in Sydney opener

Ali has no role in Sydney opener
Associated Press

BRISBANE, SEPT 13: Muhammad Ali, who lit the cauldron to open the Atlanta Olympics four years ago, will be at Friday's Sydney Games opening ceremonies but says he'll have no official duties.

Ali's tour of Australia's Visy Packaging factories on Wednesday took him to an industrial estate on the western outskirts of Brisbane. He met employees of the company owned by billionaire businessman Richard Pratt, who invited Ali to Australia.

Just three months after being named the sportsman of the century, he stood, hands shaking from Parkinson's disease, in front of the working class crowd in the industrial suburb of Carole Park.

His friend Anthony Pratt, son of the packaging magnate, introduced Ali as the greatest sportsman in the history of the world.

Losing little of his showmanship to the debilitating disease that has robbed him of much of his movement, Ali pointed to himself as the introduction was made.

Aided by his wife Lonnie, he later answered questions from an enthusiastic crowd, their emotions whipped up by footage of Ali's Rumble In The Jungle with George Foreman.

When asked what it felt like to put Foreman on the canvas, Ali said ``good.''

He joked that he could beat current world champion Lennox Lewis.