Nigeria’s first-ever Olympics medalist, Nojim Maiyegun, has died at the age of 83.
This was disclosed late Monday by an Austria-based acquaintance of the deceased identified as Rudolfine Soultan (Funmilayo) on her Facebook post.
The post read, “My Jimylein (Jimmy) is dead. I can’t say more about this right now because it’s just horrible. By the day after tomorrow, we would have been together for 17 years.”
In a check by our correspondent, on August 29, 2023, Maiyegun, popularly known by the monikers — Jimmy, Market Boxer and Omo Oloja; wrote in a Facebook post, with a picture of himself and Soultan, “16 years together.”
Soultan, on July 14, 2024, made another post on her Facebook wall, depicting the health status of the deceased.
It read, “Happy birthday, dear Amin. Unfortunately, we celebrate without Jimmy and not much, because he was admitted to the hospital again today. I always go with the rescue and stay with him for a few more hours.”
Born February 17, 1941, in Lagos State, Maiyegun became Nigeria’s first-ever Olympic medalist after winning bronze in the men’s light middleweight (71kg) category at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
He also won a bronze medal at the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica among several other laurels he won while representing Nigeria.
He relocated to Austria in 1971 to continue his professional boxing career. However, he had a short professional career between 1971 and 1973 with only 16 bouts, winning 12 including 10 knockouts and four defeats as well.
In 2012, he revealed that he had lost his sight.
