MBE, Australian boxer
Died aged 62
Lionel Rose was the first Australian Aboriginal boxer to achieve world recognition, beating Japan's Fighting Harada in Tokyo in 1968 to win the world bantamweight title.
He was named Australian of the Year after his win, the first Aborigine to receive the honour. He was also appointed MBE the same year.
He finished his career with 42 wins, 12 by knockout, in 53 fights. When he returned to Melbourne from Tokyo an estimated quarter of a million people lined the streets to cheer him.
He defended his title on several occasions before losing to Mexico's Ruben Olivares in late 1969.
World Boxing Council official Frank Quill said Rose was one of the first sportsmen to speak out against the apartheid regime in South Africa, refusing a lucrative offer to fight in South Africa in 1970. The offer came not long after Rose had lost his world title and at a time when he was almost certainly in need of money.
"He considered the fight and if he had have taken it he would have had to go there [South Africa] as an 'honorary white'," Quill said. "So he said 'I'm not going'."
At the height of his career, Rose was courted by celebrities, including Elvis Presley, who met the boxer when he defended his title in California in 1968. He retired in 1971. Rose was born in 1948, the eldest of nine children, and grew up in Jacksons Track, an Aboriginal settlement near the town of Warragul, Victoria.
Rose won his first big fight at Melbourne's Festival Hall in 1963 and by the end of the year had claimed Australia's national amateur flyweight title. He turned professional in 1964, mainly to support his family.
- AP
