Shields is not the most accomplished female boxer in Olympic history, either. Your life is different, you make your decisions and you decide what to do.
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She did, running her record to 77-1 and her winning streak to 51 fights with a performance she celebrated by running a lap around the boxing ring, a giant American flag trailing her like a kite.
Shields became the first USA boxer ever to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals with her third unanimous decision victory of the Olympic Games in the women’s middleweight final with the Netherlands’ Nouchka Fontijn.
Shields had all the answers as she breezed through three unanimous decision victories in the tournament. Fontijn was moving, staying away and attempting to box on the outside, but Shields sized her up and moved forward, throwing overhand rights and left hooks to easily win the opening round. Who knows if I’ll be just as dominant or just as great a boxer in 2020? Joyce continued to press and was more accurate in the final three minutes, but Yoka had already done enough, edging a split decision to win the final Olympic Boxing gold of Rio 2016.
“I just want to go home and see my mom”, she said. “Please tell me I’m not dreaming”.
Told after her win on Sunday that her name was trending on #blackwomenmagic, she said that when she was 17 she was enjoying her success after her gold at the London Games and did not really want to talk about black or political issues.
The Men’s Flyweight (52kg) Final saw Russia’s APB World Champion Misha Aloian facing Shakhobidin Zoirov of Uzbekistan, who had already beaten Azerbaijan’s reigning World Champion Elvin Mamishzada in the round of sixteen.
“If feels so, so good, and its because she deserves it, she fought for it”.
“That’s more than anything itself”, Briana Shields said after the fight. “It depends on my opportunities”, she said. And as her punches got heavier and her footwork quicker, it convinced her that she could go as far as hard work would take her.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do”.
Weaver says the now two-time Olympic gold medalist is a role model for “old and young alike”.
“I want to inspire people and give people just a little bit of hope”, Shields said. Because she can no longer stomach the food in the athletes village cafeteria after a month in Rio, she had consumed only a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and some chocolate milk on the day before her first fight. I have a sister who can maybe get shot. “I don’t even have to warm up for that”.
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Later on Sunday, Shields was awarded the Val Barker trophy as the best overall boxer in the women’s tournament, becoming the sixth ever American victor and first since Roy Jones Jr at Seoul 1988.
