He never threw it away. There was a reporter doing a story on the young cassius clay and upon touring his house, he saw the original medal. He could tell this was the original because it was before a replacement ceremony. Ali used to pretend he trained underwater for media coverage when infact he did not. Therefor, without any photo graph proving iotherwise, i'm 100% sure he didn't throw his gold medal in the river but he DID throw something if an eyewitness said they saw him do it. The man was smart.