Claressa Shields, London Olympic boxing champion, and three-time World Championship victor is back to secure yet another gold medal at the Rio Olympics.
Advertisement
Claressa Shields, 21, made history Sunday when she became the first athlete from the United States to win two Olympic gold medals in boxing – a feat no American man or woman has achieved in the 112 years since the sport was introduced to Olympic competition. With the first three rounds won, the defending champion remained focussed, and though Fontijn won the last two minutes, Shields had already earned a unanimous victory and a place in American boxing folklore.
Shields, 21, who grew up in Flint, Mich., also beat Fontijin back in May to win her second consecutive world championship.
If Dariga can pull off an Olympic upset (there have been a lot of those, lately) then she’ll face the victor of the fight between China’s Li Qian, 26, and the Netherlands’ Nouchka Fontijn, 28, on August 21.
Team USA men’s basketball got off to a slow start against Serbia in the gold medal game, but when the Americans hit their stride in the second quarter, they never slowed down. To be able to say I’m a two-time Olympic gold medalist?
“I don’t know”, she answered when asked about her future. And she said there’s a lesson in all that. “So me hearing hers made me decide I would speak about it”.
“Oh my God, I feel like I’m dreaming right now, somebody pinch me, oh my God”, Shields said after the fight, according to the Olympic News Service”. She also secured a couple of endorsement deals, including one with Powerade, which she not-so-subtly mentioned a couple of times in her post-fight media session.
“I wanted her to throw her punches at me so I could show her I’m faster than you, I punch harder than you”.
The American was building a lead and had her hands down in a sign the confidence was flowing through her, as the pair went at one another at the end of the round with a flurry of wild punches. Every time I go to Florida, I have this overwhelming feeling that I’m happy every day.
Mossely won lightweight gold on her 24th birthday on Friday. “I can not believe I just did this”.
With the win, Shields will become one of the biggest names in boxing. “I was like, ‘Hey, we are here to fight, ‘” Shields said.
Her two golds are two more than any other US boxer has won since 2004.
“This is for all of Uzbekistan, it is an Independence Day gift to the people who have supported me”, said an emotional Gaibnazarov.
“We can make it if we try, just the two of us”.
On the podium, after the medal was slipped around her neck, she reached into her pocket, pulled out her gold medal from the 2012 London Games and draped that one over her head, too.
The Rio Olympics are officially over following a closing ceremony that was a bit more subdued than the opener.
She rocked Fontijn with a thunderous right to the face in the second round then gestured to her shaken foe to come fight in the fourth.
Shields has reason to be confident given all that she has overcome.
Advertisement
A standing room-only crowd watched Shields’ fight at Flint’s Berston field house, where Shields learned to box.
