Birthday greetings for 'The Greatest'

Present world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis joined the tributes to his greatest predecessor as Muhammad Ali celebrated his 60th birthday today.

Lewis, like so many of his contemporaries who continue to fight in the wake of Ali's enormous legend, said: "Muhammad Ali has been a tremendous inspiration to me personally as well as other boxers, and to the world outside boxing.

"Happy 60th birthday Muhammad, and I wish you many more."

Olympic super-heavyweight champion Audley Harrison said Ali was the man to whose heights everybody who laced on the gloves aspired, but none could ever emulate.

"Muhammad Ali was 'The Greatest' and is someone to whom everybody looks up," said Harrison.

"Muhammad won an Olympic gold medal and went on to become the world heavyweight champion and that is a path which one day I plan to follow myself."

Former British heavyweight champion Brian London was knocked out in three rounds by Ali in August 1966 but he has fond memories of the man who beat him.

London said: "It wasn't a fight because he was just too good for me. There was nothing I could have done - he was brilliant, very very fast.

"It is fantastic now to be able to say that I got in the ring with him and fought him. But I also regret that I did not have the ability to do better."

Ali was a regular visitor to Britain, most recently for the 1999 Sports Personality of the Year awards when he was crowned sportsman of the century.

The British Boxing Board of Control's general secretary Simon Block paid him this tribute: "All of us here at the British Boxing Board of Control are pleased to pay public tribute to 'The Greatest' on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

"Muhammad Ali has visited Britain many times over the years and is probably the best loved overseas sportsman ever to have done so.

"I well remember his presence at ringside during the Frank Bruno v Tim Witherspoon contest in 1986 alongside the other stars of showbusiness and sport, who were completely disregarded by the scrum of people trying to get his autograph and shake him by the hand.

"We wish long life, peace and contentment to the most recognisable public figure of the last 30 years, whose standing is not diminished but increases with the passage of time."