Shields became the first USA boxer to win two gold medals.
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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.
Yet after the London Games, Shields struggled with demons from the past, and grew frustrated with her life back in Flint, hoping to move forward with a new dream. “There was a girl who was talking about her mom who sold her for some drugs”, she said.
“I don’t really have too big of a secret”, Snyder said.
Shields had all the answers as she breezed through three unanimous decision victories.
And though she had said all along that there was no “if” in her pursuit of a second Olympic gold – victory was certain, she vowed – all she could say in the immediate aftermath was repeat over and over, “I can’t believe it!”
But she is only 21, and she certainly has time for that.
Koroma and head women’s coach Billy Walsh work on game plans with Shields, but her superior skills and athleticism often make it relatively easy work. Julio Cesar La Cruz finally added Olympic light-heavyweight gold to his three world titles while Cuban Robeisy Ramirez defended the bantamweight title he won at London 2012.
She’s not anxious about getting endorsements this time around, “cause everybody wants a tough, strong woman in their life!” Galen Rupp made that decision, won the trials, and ended up taking home a bronze medal Sunday morning in the second competitive marathon he had ever run. “The only thing was last round, go in there, be smart, land your shots and finish and I did it”. Because I remember when I was one of those kids who didn’t have any hope.
The odds are on her to go back-to-back.
“I’m just so happy and I prayed before I came here and I just knew God was with me”.
She stopped eating like the college student that she recently was, eating proper meals and subsequently dominating Kazakhstan’s Dariga Shakimova to reach the final.
“I don’t even remember getting hit”, she said.
Clarence Shields didn’t give his daughter much. The 21-year-old Flint, Michigan, native beat Netherlands fighter Nouchka Fontijn by unanimous decision in convincing fashion.
But Stevenson is expected to turn pro before the end of the summer.
She couldn’t – not with the way that Shields slipped and ducked – Shields won every round against Fontijn. I train as hard as I possibly can.
“I’m a two-time Olympic gold medalist!”
“I still love my hometown, and I’m still gonna be involved in my hometown”, she told me, “but I just can’t live there”.
But when it comes time to box for an actual gold, Shields has no peer.
They throw similar amount of total punches per two-minute round and Claressa Shields landed almost twice as man in her two 2016 Olympic wins.
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Shields came from a black pit to become an Olympic champion and that’s an incredible story. “I was like, ‘Hey, we are here to fight, ‘” Shields said. She was the only female boxer from the United States to come away from the Olympic Games with gold.
