The 1960 Olympics were big and exciting in a lot of ways.

The American team was led by Rafer Johnson.

It was a very exciting time to be an Olympian.

Prakash is really never traveled very far.

This was really an eye opener to see the world and to see peopl who spoke different languages, and he instantly became the mayor of the Olympic Village.

He was not famous yet in any way, but his magnetism just was amazing.

And you see instantly reporters and other athletes saying, who is this guy?

We need to talk to him and just clusters forming around him wherever he went.

Clay reveled in all the attention.

He met Bing Crosby, flirte with the sprinter Wilma Rudolph, and posed for photographs with the current heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson.

Be seeing you in about two more years, he said.

This kid is irresistible, wrote one reporter.

He even made friends with the Russians.

The Olympic athlete with the noblest Roman name of the all is Cassius Marcellus Clay.

Actually, Cassius is no Roman at all, however, is actually an 18 year old light heavyweight who makes his home on Gran Street in Louisville, Kentucky, and he may very well become an Olympic champion.

Cassius Clay.

He's America's light heavyweight.

No one outside the States has ever heard Clay beat a Belgian, a Russian and an Australian.

And now he's in the final.

His opponent for the gold medal would be Zinzi Pacheco from Poland, who'd won Olympic bronze four years earlier.

The pole is 25.

He's been unbeaten, the champion of Europe for five years.

For two rounds, the men measured each other by a rather casual way of trying to win.

He punches very hard.

In the third and final run.

Clay took command.

Oh, good shot by Clay.

That high five.

Got to Kowsk bleeding from the mouth a bit.

Difficult know.

Definitely bleeding at the nose and mouth.

And I a heavily.

There at the end of the fight.

Cassius Clay had won the ultimate prize in amateur boxing.

And then he flew back to New York, where a Louisville millionaire paid for the boxers suite at the Waldorf Towers Hotel and gave him a roll of bills, which he used to dine on steaks and buy expensive watches for his brother and parents, later decked out in his gold medal and Olympic blazer.

Clay visited Times Square where he paid to have a novelty newspaper printed up with the headline Cassius signs for Patterson fight.

Try this for a slice of cheesecake.

And at Birdland, a popular jazz club, asked the bartender for a Cok with a single drop of whiskey.

Everywhere he went, well-wishers praised him for his success in Rome.

At Louisville's airport, hundreds of fans were there to greet him day before.

You've heard of a good many things today already here at the airport, but congratulations.

Let's take a look at that.

Real gold medal medalist.

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr was just 18, but he'd fought more than 100 amateur bout and was ready to turn professional and.