Shields, the heavy pre-tournament favorite to repeat her gold-medal performance from the 2012 London Games, cruised to a four-round unanimous decision against Dariga Shakimova, of Kazakhstan, on Friday in their 165-pound semifinal match at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. When she became the first US woman to win a boxing gold medal, defeating Russian Nadezda Torlopova in the middleweight division, her story became Olympic legend.
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Claressa Shields, London Olympic boxing champion, and three-time World Championship victor is back to secure yet another gold medal at the Rio Olympics.
Shields, who beat Fontijn at the world championships in May, shook and shimmied before she took her triumphant step on the medal stand. The 21-year-old Flint, Michigan, native beat Netherlands fighter Nouchka Fontijn by unanimous decision in convincing fashion.
Uzbekistan’s boxers took a single medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games – a bronze – but at Rio 2016 they were among the contenders in nearly every category and won seven medals, more than any other country.
But so too does Shields, the “T-Rex” who has not lost since 2012 and is her country’s first double boxing champion in 112 years. But I did the jab.
Shortly after Claressa Shields punched her way through yet another elite opponent to reach another Olympic gold-medal bout, she spontaneously broke into song. “I really can’t dwell on what I didn’t get”.
But she is only 21, and she certainly has time for that.
“Girl you made us proud and you showed us what Flint strong is all about”, Weaver said. Working her body from the hips up, Shields platforms herself as she taunts the now frustrated Fontijn by slipping a barrage of continuous flurries as if she were playing a game of dodge ball. But as The Torch has reported, Shields hasn’t been able to convert her fame into the slew of endorsement deals one might expect. More confident then ever, Shields not only boxes beautifully, she wins the bout without breaking a sweat. Because I remember when I was one of those kids who didn’t have any hope. “So me hearing hers made me decide I would speak about it”. “I want to help people”.
“I actually could have stopped her, but I was having so much fun out there I was like, why do that?” She split from her longtime coach, Jason Crutchfield, who had coached her when she started boxing at 11 and had been a father figure. Her boxing gloves were bright pink, close to her brown face, and she seemed so calm. It was the fact that she was so young, in the midst of so much pain and trauma, but she had found her objective, and she was not willing to make compromises for anybody.
But the pro game is waiting and Shields could be the first crossover star in women’s boxing. Uzbekistan had just one gold ever in the Olympics.
Shields has spoken passionately in the past about her tough upbringing in Flint, an economically depressed city in MI which suffered badly with the drastic downturn in the American auto industry and has been embroiled in a water-contamination crisis.
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There was, of course, her personal story of fighting to overcome the trials that she had been burdened with, but it was more than that for me. “We’re trying to build a bond, and she sees it better than anyone”. “I wanted her to throw punches at me so I could show her that I’m faster than you and I punch harder than you”.
