Sugar Ray Leonard championship belt given to Nelson Mandela stolen from South African museum

A World Boxing Council (WBC) championship title belt given to Nelson Mandela by Sugar Ray Leonard has been stolen from a museum in South…

By: Karim Zidan | 11 months ago
Sugar Ray Leonard championship belt given to Nelson Mandela stolen from South African museum
Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

A World Boxing Council (WBC) championship title belt given to Nelson Mandela by Sugar Ray Leonard has been stolen from a museum in South Africa.

The belt, which Leonard gifted to Mandela in 1990, was stolen from the Nelson Mandela National Museum in Soweto, South Africa, where it was prominently displayed as one of the museum’s major attractions.

The news was first reported by eNCA.

According to local law enforcement, the belt (valued at approx. $3000) was taken during a July 1 break-in. No other items were reported missing from the facility.

“There are currently no suspects arrested and the police are investigating,” Police spokeswoman, Colonel Dimakatso Sello said in a statement. “Anyone who may have information about this incident is requested to contact the police.”

Leonard gave the belt to Mandela, himself a former amateur boxer, shortly after the activist was released from prison in 1990 after spending 27 years behind bars for opposing apartheid. Mandela would go on to become South Africa’s first democratically elected leader in 1994.

Mandela’s private secretary, Zelda la Grange, recounted the boxer’s visit with Mandela years later.

“I do know that [the belt] was very valuable to him,” la Grange said. “Whenever he could he watched boxing and because it was a sport in which he participated himself also, you know he really admired people who aspired to the discipline of boxing. So, he was a great fan of Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Ray and him met on a few occasions, so I think it was very sentimental to him as well.”

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About the author
Karim Zidan
Karim Zidan

Karim Zidan is a investigative reporter and feature writer focusing on the intersection of sports and politics. He has written for BloodyElbow since 2014 and has served as an associate editor since 2016. He also writes for The New York Times and The Guardian. Karim has been invited to speak about his work at numerous universities, including Princeton, and was a panelist at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and the Oslo Freedom Forum. He also participated in the United Nations counter-terrorism conference in 2021. His reporting on Ramzan Kadyrov’s involvement in MMA, much of which was done for Bloody Elbow, has led to numerous award nominations, and was the basis of an award-winning HBO Real Sports documentary.

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