Globalsport

Muhammad Ali has been voted the Sports Personality of the Century in a BBC poll.

Ali’s award marked a night of success for boxing with undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis claiming the British Sports Personality of the Year.

I’m greatest: Pele
BRUSSELS: Football legend Pele said on Sunday he was the greatest sportsman of the century. Heavyweight boxing legend Muhammad Ali and American athlete Jesse Owens are arguably his biggest rivals for that honour, but Pele, asked whom he would choose as his Sportsman of the Century, said, “I have tostay with Pele, no doubt. When someone has played for his country at 16, won a World Cup at 17 and scores more than 1000 goals they deserve it. Until you find someone else who has done that then itmust be me,” Pele said.

IOC reform package
LAUSANNE: International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch arrives in Washington to face US Congressional investigators armed with the movement’s much heralded reform package.

The decision taken over the weekend by IOC general assembley to pass 50 reforms including a ban on all visits to bidding Olympic cities and an end to jobs for life, has given Samaranch the vital ammunition he needs to face the Congress.

Klim marks debated
CANBERRA: Australia’s Michael Klim, fresh from setting two World records in three days, was forced to defend chasing records in solo time trials.Klim beat his own world record for the 100 metres butterfly for the second time when he completed the distance in 51.81 seconds at an Australian Institute ofSport meeting in Canberra. Local media said Klim’s feats had sparked debate over the merits of records set in time trials, without competition and the wash created by other swimmers. “To me, personally, it doesn’t really matter,” the 22-year-old Klim told reporters.