Claressa Shields brought one gold medal to the ring with her and left with two hanging around her neck after retaining her Olympic middleweight title and making US boxing history on Sunday. Don’t stay in the shower for 20 minutes, because it’s like a steam room. I have to keep reminding myself these things.
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International Boxing Association President Ching-Kuo Wu attended all 16 days of the Olympic boxing tournament, and he believes Rio de Janeiro saw the best competition ever staged at the games. Fontijn, 28, can fight.
“I wanted to let everyone know that I’m not just a great female boxer but I’m one of the greatest boxers to ever live”, an overjoyed Shields said after the bout, ESPN reports.
“This is for all of Uzbekistan, it is an Independence Day gift to the people who have supported me”, said an emotional Gaibnazarov. 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 been through a lot in my life”, said Shields, who combines a punishing punch with an infectious spirit.
“It is a great feeling to be Olympic champion, I’m so happy with the result”.
Shields is increasingly competing largely against her own preparation and motivation – something she does well. Because I remember when I was one of those kids who didn’t have any hope. “I actually could have stopped her but I was having so much fun I was like, why do that?”
She reflected on that troubled past in a news conference right after her Olympic medal ceremony.
“She had thoughts of wanting to move on (go professional) but. there’s only a couple of people that have achieved three gold medals in the history of boxing and she’ll only be 25 come the next Games”.
“I wanted it to be known that I’m not just a great female boxer”. Unlike in 1996 when I got started, the raw talent that entered into the first Women’s National Championship was high in talent but low in quantity. “This is insane”, Shields said in disbelief. While Shields had been stalking Fontijn around the ring in the first round, in the second she changed her footwork – and in one artful sequence, she backpedaled smoothly out of trouble before landing a solid right on Fontijn.
What’s next? She has no idea. After winning her coveted title, Lisa relives childhood memories of abuse, neglect, and pure evil inflicted by foster parents she lived with while also dreading random appearances of her manipulative mentally ill birth mother. “I want to go home”. I’m a two-time Olympic gold medalist. While she doesn’t know exactly what her future awaits, a trip home to Flint is certainly in her plans. Shield said, gasping for air, trying to make it seem real.
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“I think, if anything, my secret is that instead of thinking about winning and thinking about gold medals and stuff like that, I try to value just my effort, value my improvement and value the love that I have for the sport”.
