After electrify the masses and get your name known worldwide, Muhammad Ali will start on Friday (10) his eternal rest in an American cemetery at the end of his last appearance in the spotlight.
The boxer with step dancer and steel fists rest in the city where he was born, Louisville (Kentucky), in the heart of a country that despised or idolized, according to the season.
After having grown up under racial segregation in a city where the places were forbidden to him, it was imperative that there made his last ride, borrowing the streets baptized with the name that he chose to convert to Islam.
A procession will begin at 9 am local (10h GMT) and will have 30 km route will gather on street sidewalks thousands of anonymous people from as far away as Africa or Asia.
They will see the passage of a hearse with the body of Ali, who died last Friday aged 74, who was held on Thursday a Muslim prayer.
The funeral cortege will address later to Cave Hill Cemetery.
In this vast green space is also buried Patty Hill, who wrote the famous song "Happy Birthday to You" (Congratulations to you), known worldwide. It will be like a nod to the legendary boxer universality.
His funeral, in the presence of the sons of Ali, will be in absolute privacy. Actor Will Smith and former world boxing champion Lennox Lewis will carry the coffin along with six other people.
Will Smith incarnated Muhammad Ali in Michael Mann film "Ali" (2001), a role that earned him a nomination for best actor.
A "generous patron", whose name was not revealed, promised to cover red rose petals the final path to the grave.
But in practice, who will be buried on Friday in Louisville?
Will the little Cassius Clay, disgusted by the theft of your bike? The giant of the ring, knocking heavyweights in the fighting of the century? The obstinate opponent of the Vietnam War? The poet who "flies like a butterfly (e) stings like a bee '? The militant attracted by radical view of Malcolm X? Or the humanist peaceful who preached religious tolerance?
Strictly speaking, they are all in one man.
"Prisoner of your body" Highlight this will be the task of those who, in a few hours, will pronounce the eulogies in honor of this legendary character in the last farewell ceremony.
Former President Bill Clinton will be one of the speakers, as well as comedian Billy Crystal. The auditorium will be present Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials.
Distributed free, the 15,000 tickets to this event sold out in half an hour, causing their sale on the black market.
After closing the parentheses of the last public honors, Louisville and its 600,000 inhabitants recover tranquility and routine.
"My hero was a prisoner of his body," he told AFP Fred Dillon, a local taxi driver, referring to the Parkinson's disease that Ali suffered for three decades. "Now he can now fly like a butterfly."
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