DEATHS : Ex-Fighter Carlos Duran, 54

BRUGNATO, Italy —  Argentine-born Italian Carlos Duran, a former European boxing champion and father of a reigning world champion, died from injuries sustained in a car crash along the Genoa-Leghorn highway.

Duran was 54. He’s survived by his widow Augusta and their sons Massimiliano and Alessandro, both boxers. Massimiliano Duran is the WBC cruiserweight champion.

Traffic police reported that Carlos Duran’s Alfa Romeo car slammed into the rear of a truck Wednesday near this Ligurian town. He died in the hospital of La Spezia one hour later from several skull and thoracic fractures, doctors said.

Duran, who was born in Santa Fe and who had transferred to Italy in 1960 to become an Italian citizen, had been a European super-welterweight and middleweight champion between 1966 to 1972.

His boxing career was dramatically marked by the death of an opponent, German Jupp Elze. Elze collapsed and died after a European title fight with Duran in Cologne.