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| - The 32nd Summer Olympics finally start on July 23 in Tokyo after a year's delay because of the coronavirus pandemic. Here is AFP Sport's second set of five legends of the Games: Papp tangled with Hungarian Communist authorities as well as ring opponents as he became the first boxer to win three Olympic gold medals. The fluid, hard-hitting southpaw, known for his devastating left hook, totted up a 301-12 amateur win-loss record, with 55 first-round KOs. In 13 Olympic bouts across London 1948 (middleweight), Helsinki 1952 and Melbourne 1956 (both light-middleweight), Papp lost only one round -- in the 2-1 final win against America's Jose Torres in 1956. That third gold came at a highly emotional time, just weeks after the brutal crushing of a Hungarian uprising against the Soviet-backed regime. The Budapest-born Papp turned professional the following year aged 31. But the first professional boxer from the Soviet bloc was denied a shot at middleweight world champion Joey Giardello in the United States in 1965. The Hungarian Communist authorities revoked his passport, concerned about a boxer fighting for money in the beacon of the capitalist world. Papp retired as an undefeated European middleweight champion and was later awarded an honorary world title by the World Boxing Council, who also named him the best amateur and professional fighter of all time. The Australian became the first woman to defend an Olympic swimming title and the first swimmer of either sex to win the same event three times with Olympic 100m freestyle golds in Melbourne 1956, Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964. Fraser also won gold in the 1956 4x100m freestyle relay, and earned four other silvers in a career marked by clashes with Australia's swimming authorities. After Rome, she was handed a two-year ban for offences including not wearing the official team tracksuit to a medal ceremony. At Tokyo, Fraser again defied team orders, wore an unofficial swimsuit and was caught stealing souvenir flags near the Imperial Palace, earning her a 10-year ban and prompting her retirement. Fraser, the product of a working-class suburb of Sydney, remains one of Australia's most outspoken sports personalities. In 2015, she apologised for telling misbehaving tennis stars Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic "to go back to where their parents came from". Ukrainian-born Latynina competed in the 1958 world gymnastics championships while four months pregnant -- and took home five gold medals. It showed the sort of determination that was to bring her 18 Olympic medals, a record which stood for nearly half-a-century until broken at London 2012 by American swimmer Michael Phelps. Latynina finished her Olympic career with nine gold, five silver and four bronze medals. "She was our first legend," said Bela Karolyi, the coach of Romania's Nadia Comaneci. "When she stepped out on the floor, all eyes were on her. She demanded attention and respect." At her first Games in 1956, Latynina won the vault, floor, all-round and team golds. She successfully defended all but the vault in 1960 and in 1964, aged 29, won her third straight floor and team titles. The brash American boasted he would win six gold medals at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics but he ended up with two relay titles and only one individual silver and one bronze, in what he called "the worst meet of my life". Four years later in Munich, Spitz stunned the world by winning an unprecedented seven gold medals at the same Games, coming home first in every event he entered with a world record each time. Spitz's haul -- 100m and 200m double in both freestyle and the butterfly, and three relay titles -- remained unmatched until Michael Phelps swam to eight golds in Beijing in 2008. Spitz retired immediately after Munich, before attempting an ill-fated comeback, aged 41, when he failed to qualify for the 1992 Barcelona Games. Spitz confessed in 2008 to being relieved to see his record eclipsed by Phelps. "He is the single greatest Olympic athlete of all time now," said Spitz. "I always wondered what my feelings would be. I feel a tremendous load off my back." The first heavyweight boxer to win three golds, Stevenson turned down a lucrative fight with Muhammad Ali to remain amateur throughout his career, earning the devotion of his adoring compatriots. "What is a million dollars worth compared to the love of eight million Cubans?" he said. Stevenson's three golds came in 1972, 1976 and 1980, making him one of only three fighters to achieve the feat and the first since Hungary's Papp 24 years earlier. The third was another Cuban heavyweight, Felix Savon, in 1992, 1996 and 2000. In a 1988 Boxing Illustrated poll, the towering, graceful Stevenson, with a thundering right hand and striking resemblance to Ali, was selected as the greatest Olympic boxer of all time. In 1974 promoters Bob Arum and Don King both tried to lure the 22-year-old to fight Ali, a match that many believe the Cuban would have won. Ali instead regained his heavyweight title by knocking out George Foreman in the famous "Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire. Stevenson lost one only round at the Olympics, in his final bout against the Soviet Union's Piotr Zaev in 1980. Stevenson won three amateur world championships but was denied a shot at more Olympic gold when Fidel Castro's Cuba boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles and 1988 Seoul Games. Stevenson, described by his friend Ali as "one of the great boxing champions", retired aged 36 just after the 1988 boycott was announced and died in 2012 after a heart attack. dh/th/bsp
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