Italian boxer Giovanni ‘Nino’ Benvenuti, who won Olympic gold in Rome in 1960, died on Tuesday at the age of 87, the Italian Olympic Committee (IOC) said in a statement.
Turning professional after the Olympics, Benvenuti was also a world champion in two different weight divisions in the 1960s.
Born in the Istria region in what is part of modern-day Slovenia, Benvenuti won Olympic welterweight gold for Italy with victory over Yuri Radonyak of the Soviet Union in the final.
He was awarded the Val Barker trophy as the outstanding boxer at the 1960 Games — an event where American Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, won the light heavyweight gold.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni paid tribute to Benvenuti as an athlete and for speaking up for thousands of Italians killed by Yugoslav partisans or exiled at the end of World War II.
“Thanks Nino for your fights in the ring and for those in defence of the truth. Italy will not forget you,” she wrote on social media.
Benvenuti won the world super welterweight title in 1965 when he knocked out compatriot Sandro Mazzinghi.
Having lost that crown, he moved up to the middleweight division and beat American Emile Griffith at Madison Square Garden in 1967 to claim another world title.
Griffith won a rematch later that year, but Benvenuti reclaimed the title in 1968 in their third meeting.
The Italian lost the title in 1970 when Argentine Carlos Monzon defeated him in Rome.
After his retirement, he appeared in a couple of films and remained a familiar face with regular television appearances.
