Claressa Shields, London Olympic boxing champion, and three-time World Championship victor is back to secure yet another gold medal at the Rio Olympics.
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Shields, who could become the first US boxer to win two golds since 1904, is the second member of the current team to reach a final with bantamweight Shakur Stevenson unable to win his gold medal bout on Saturday.
On Friday, Shields toyed with Kazakhstan’s Dariga Shamikova, winning a lopsided unanimous decision on her way to Sunday’s gold-medal fight where she’ll meet Holland’s Nouchkha Fontijn.
Shields talked to reporters still wearing tape on her hands, still covered in sweat.
Fazliddin Gaibnazarov defeated Azerbaijan Lorenzo Sotomayor in the light welterweight final to become the third Uzbekistan boxer to win gold in the games. “But I want to inspire”. Who knows if I’ll be just as dominant or just as great a boxer in 2020?
“I definitely think I’m the best fighter in the world here”, Shields said in a line comparable to Muhammad Ali’s “I am the greatest!”
“Everybody was saying, ‘You should be signed with Nike, you should be on a Wheaties box, how come you aren’t in this magazine?'” Shields said earlier this summer. “This is insane”, Shields said in disbelief. “The only thing was last round, go in there, be smart, land your shots and finish and I did it”.
Yoka, who said he would turn pro, laughed when asked if Mossely offered pre-fight advice: “She asked me to win. I can get out and do that and be safe doing it”.
Shields looks to be having fun as she shut down the once chanting audience in favor of Fontijn. She believes it’s because she is not a “pretty girl” who is sweet and charming, and doesn’t fit the requirements of these companies.
Snyder is the second straight American wrestler to win Olympic gold in his weight class.
“We’re going to try everything we can to hold on to her”, said the Irishman. She will leave Rio with a $25,000 gold medal bonus from the U.S. Olympic Committee, and she has a plan: She won’t be going back to live in the city of Flint, where crime rates are high and the economy is a shambles.
Times have changed. Shields is four years older, entertainingly outspoken, and a much bigger name, in sports and beyond. And she will have to fight better and stronger in the semifinal than she did on Wednesday.
Climbing out of the ring after the announcement, she ran around the arena with the USA flag held aloft before wrapping it around her.
Claressa Shields is taking home even more than a second gold medal from Rio.
The Dutchwoman, 28, had most of the crowd in the 9,000-seat arena on her side – it is a case of supporting anyone but an American or an Argentine for many Brazilians in Rio – and they roared their approval when Fontijn enjoyed some success in the second.
The Rio Olympics are officially over following a closing ceremony that was a bit more subdued than the opener. Oliver Kirk won two gold medals in the bantamweight and featherweight titles in 1904.
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“I’m just so happy and I prayed before I came here and I just knew God was with me”.
