Former South African world heavyweight boxing champion Gerrie Coetzee, who had among his fans the political icon Nelson Mandela, died in Cape Town at the age of 67 from lung cancer, his family announced on Friday to AFP.
Coetzee achieved the WBA (World Boxing Association) championship belt in the premier class in 1983, beating American Michael Dokes by knockout (KO) in the tenth round in Richfield (Ohio, United States).
He then lost his title defense, controversially, a year later to another American fighter, Greg Page.
That bout, staged in Sun City, South Africa, was stopped after the scheduled three minutes of the eighth round had expired. The official timekeeper had forgotten to ring the bell.
Coetzee defied apartheid laws by fighting non-white boxers in front of multiracial crowds. He met Mandela on several occasions after the symbolic leader’s release.
“In prison, he would listen to radio commentary on some of my fights,” Coetzee told reporters after a meeting with Mandela, who became South Africa’s first democratically elected president, in 1994.
In the South Africa of the 1980s, marked by racial segregation, Gerrie Coetzee, born in a working-class suburb in eastern Johannesburg, was perceived as the representative of all races in the country.
“I am proud that black, brown and white South Africans accept me as their champion,” he declared. (D)
Source: Eluniverso
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