Nigeria’s first Olympic medalist, Nojim Maiyegun, passed away on Monday at the age of 85 in Vienna, Austria.
According to reports, Maiyegun died of natural causes after battling an illness for several months. The former boxer had been virtually impaired for years and was in and out of the hospital over the past six months.
Maiyegun made history by winning Nigeria’s first Olympic medal, a bronze, in the Light Middleweight (71 kg) boxing category at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics. He shared the bronze with Poland’s Józef Grzesiak, marking Nigeria’s first Olympic medal since the country began participating in the Games in 1952. Maiyegun’s win ended a 12-year winless streak for Nigeria at the Olympics.
His death occurred just days after the 60th anniversary of his historic Olympic win on August 10, 1964. Maiyegun’s passing was confirmed by Rudolfine F Soultan, a confidante, who expressed her grief in a Facebook post:
“My Jimmy died. I can’t say more about this right now because it’s just horrible. The day after tomorrow, we would have been together for 17 years.”
Stephen Ogboh, another Nigerian living in Austria and an acquaintance of Maiyegun, also confirmed the news, reflecting on Maiyegun’s recent health struggles.
At the age of 23, Maiyegun defeated Great Britain’s William Robinson in just one minute and 59 seconds in the second round of the Olympic boxing competition. He then defeated Tom Bogs of Denmark in the quarter-finals before losing to France’s Joseph Gonzalez in the semi-finals, resulting in a shared bronze medal with Grzesiak.
Two years later, in 1966, Maiyegun won another bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica, further cementing his legacy as one of Nigeria’s boxing greats.
