Claressa Shields, a 21-year-old from Flint, Michigan, made history in the 2012 London Olympics by becoming the first woman in US history to win a gold medal in Olympic boxing.
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The most notable storyline to take home from Rio 2016 Olympic Games boxing tournament in Brazil will be the rise of Uzbekistan as a force in the sport’s amateur ranks. Yoka used his pace to evade his opponent’s relentless attacks, counter-attacking effectively to edge the first round, and took control of the second. She also kept a left jab ready, to try to fend off the American. After some initial conflicts with his star, he has become a fervent backer of Shields, lauding her example to his other seven fighters. Shields closed the show in the fourth, opening the round with her hands down and begging Fontijn to come forward. Jake Varner, who Snyder beat at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in April, won in London four years ago. She was in Grade 11 when she went to London and won gold.
“I actually could have stopped her, but I was having so much fun out there I was like, why do that?” To be able to say I’m a two-time Olympic gold medalist? I don’t even feel like I’m up right now.
But though it might have looked easy, Shields insisted it wasn’t. “I worked so hard to get here”. “Not everyone can be an Olympic gold medalist, period. Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that”. “It got to the point where I just shut everybody out”.
Yes, this boxer from Flint, Mich., is that good, that confident, that dominant, that powerful, that she can fight and put on a show at the same time, while trying to give a tribute to Muhammad Ali. I have a sister who can maybe get shot. “I decided I wanted to be great”.
Then she grabbed an American flag from her father, Clarence Shields, who was sitting ringside, and ran a victory lap around the arena, the flag flying behind her like a superhero’s cape. Shields once again dominated the Middleweight (75kg) competition from the outset, working her way through to the last-day final against the Netherlands’ Nouchka Fontijn. “I don’t know why”.
“I want to let it be known that I’m not just a great female boxer, but I’m one of the great boxers to ever live”. I was starving my body.
“I had my hands down because I knew I could slip and I could make her pay”, Shields said. At the 1904 St. Louis Games, Oliver Kirk won both the bantamweight and featherweight gold medals, but no American ever returned to the Olympics to win a second consecutive gold.
Back home to Flint, to see her family. “I can not believe I just did this”. He would see me on Twitter at 1 o’clock in the morning and he’d be like, ‘What are you doing?
“I give it an A-“. I don’t really know what I’m going to do. “You got that round, ‘” Shields said.
The last American boxer to win two gold medals was Oliver Kirk, who claimed bantamweight and featherweight titles at the same 1904 St. Louis Olympics, where only US boxers took part. And after the gold medal was placed around her neck on the podium, Shields slipped her 2012 gold medal with the purple ribbon from her U.S. jacket pocket and put that on, as well.
For athletes like Shields and Snyder – and indeed the vast majority of the more than 10,000 who gathered in Rio the last few weeks – the Olympics are the unquestioned pinnacle. “Please tell me I’m not dreaming”. Shields said her plan for the bout was to “just to be smart”.
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For Claressa Shields, 21, and Dariga Shakimova, 27, there is a lot on the line in this women’s middleweight fight.
