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RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014Claressa Shields brought to Rio De Janeiro what everyone forgot about, her 1st Boxing Gold Medal, as The surprise was hidden in her pocket, something great, wonderful, and historic.<\/strong><\/p>\n Claressa Shields stood on the podium on Sunday afternoon with the Olympic gold medal hanging around her neck that she had just won in women\u2019s boxing. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her other gold medal, the one she won in London at the 2012 Games.<\/strong><\/p>\n She slipped it over her head, looked down at both medals at her chest and let out a huge smile. It was historic on so many levels, something never seen before. Shields became the first U.S. boxer to win two gold medals.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the two-time Olympic champion!\u201d Shields said, defeating the Netherland\u2019s Nouchka Fontijn in the women\u2019s middleweight (75-kilogram) division in a unanimous decision. \u201cOh my God, I feel like I\u2019m dreaming. I don\u2019t want to wake up right now. \u00a0Please tell me I\u2019m not dreaming.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Shields talked to reporters still wearing tape on her hands, still covered in sweat. An American flag was draped around her neck. After the win, she did a cartwheel in the ring and ran around the arena with the flag. She let all her emotions show, something she didn\u2019t do in 2012 and she has always regretted it. But not this time. She let it all out, pure unbridled joy and surprise.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI worked so hard to be here,\u201d she said. \u201cOh my god, this is crazy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a gold medal that represents survival. She escaped from poverty and a difficult childhood, bouncing between 11 homes by the time she was 12, turning all of that pain into a champion boxer.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI want to inspire people,\u201d she said, at a press conference where she was named the tournament\u2019s most outstanding boxer. \u201cI want to help people. I want to give people just a little bit of hope.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n After winning the gold in London, Shields did not get the money or fame or endorsements that she expected. She was perceived to be too strong, too tough and too fierce to be marketable and didn\u2019t have a strong, experienced team behind her. After winning the gold medal, life didn\u2019t get easier. When everybody thought Shields had become rich, there she was, going to a collection agency to pay her mother\u2019s past-due water bill.<\/strong><\/p>\n But she is older now, more mature and has control of her life. She split from her longtime coach, Jason Crutchfield, who had coached her when she started boxing at 11 and had been a father figure. She moved to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., staying in a dorm. The move was to simplify her life, trying to avoid the distractions in Flint, Mich.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe difference is, now that I\u2019m grown, I make a lot of decisions in my life,\u201d Shields said, earlier this week. \u201cI kind of protect myself. When I was 17, my coach would turn off my phone for me. He would ask me was I OK all the time. He would check on me constantly. He would see me on Twitter at 1 o\u2019clock in the morning and he\u2019d be like, \u2018What are you doing? Go to bed.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cNow, it\u2019s like, I have to tell myself to do those things. Go to bed. Drink right. Eat right. Don\u2019t stay up too late. Don\u2019t stay in the shower for 20 minutes because it\u2019s like a steam room. Get in there for 5 minutes and get out. I have to keep reminding myself these things. \u00a0I\u2019m telling myself to focus.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n With this win, Shields becomes the most successful U.S. Olympic boxer in history \u2014 the only one to win two gold medals. That should be applauded.<\/strong><\/p>\n But she is not \u2014 not yet, at least \u2014 the most accomplished boxer in Olympic history. A pair of Cubans have won three golds each: Teofilo Stevenson dominated the men\u2019s heavyweight from 1972 to 1980 and \u00a0Felix Savon won three in a row from 1992 to 2000.<\/strong><\/p>\n Shields is not the most accomplished female boxer in Olympic history, either. Here in Rio, Nicola Adams, who is called the \u201csmiling Yorkshire assassin,\u201d won the flyweight boxing division for Britain for the second\u00a0straight Olympic Games.<\/strong><\/p>\n Before the match, Shields came to a conclusion: there was no way Fontijn was going to win. Shields had beaten her two months ago for the world championship, and at that time, Shields had an injured hand and shoulder.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cShe can\u2019t outbox me,\u201d Shields said. \u201cShe can\u2019t out fight me. She can\u2019t out think me, so how is she going to win? She will have to knock me out. But I knew she couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Late in the fight, Shields acted like she was begging Fontijn to fight. \u201cI was like, \u2018Hey, we are here to fight,\u2019\u201d Shields said. \u201c\u2018If you think you can bet me, let\u2019s go. I hit you with a hard shot, hit me back. I want to see if you can hit me.\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a two-time Olympic gold medalist!\u201d Shield said, gasping for air, trying to make it seem real. \u201cI can\u2019t believe I just said that.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n CONGRATULATIONS TO THIS GREAT 21YR OLD PHENOMENOM, CLARESSA SHIELDS.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014Claressa Shields brought to Rio De Janeiro what everyone forgot about, her 1st Boxing Gold Medal, as The surprise was hidden in her pocket, something great, wonderful, and historic. Claressa Shields stood on the podium on Sunday afternoon with the Olympic gold medal hanging around her neck that she had just won […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,13,14,1,1282,7,9,10],"tags":[1288,526,1287,840,1290,1289,1285,1286],"class_list":["post-11486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-entertainment","category-health","category-most-commented","category-news","category-olympics","category-sports","category-us","category-world","tag-1288","tag-2012-olympic-boxing","tag-1287","tag-2016-olympics-in-rio","tag-77-1","tag-career-boxing-record","tag-claressa-shields","tag-womens-gold-medal-boxing-champion","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n![\"USA's](\"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/57ba03891700001108c7485f-300x177.jpeg\")
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