Shields grabs a second gold
She becomes the U.S.’ only two-time Olympic champion in boxing.
Claressa Shields RIO DE JANEIRO — had Olympic gold around her neck and a secret keepsake in her warmup jacket pocket. She reached in her pocket, pulled out her first gold from London and slipped the medal over her head. Two Olympics, two gold medals. She beamed as she held the medals in her hands for fans to see — a sparkling reminder that she stood atop the medal stand not only as the best in the world in her class, but as the only American two-time boxing gold medalist.
“I’m going to let the world know and they’ll never forget that I have two Olympic gold medals,” she said. “Just in case anybody had any questions.”
Shields had all the answers as she breezed through three unanimous decision victories in the tournament. The 21-yearold Flint, Mich., native thumped Dutch fighter Nouchka Fontijn in convincing fashion to wrap up back-to-back middleweight gold.
With the title a formality, she gestured toward a passive Fontijn in the fourth round as if to say, “Come fight!” The round served as little more than a coronation for the American face of women’s boxing.
“I was like, ‘Hey, we’re here to fight,’ ” Shields said. “‘You think you can beat me? Let’s go.’ ”
Shields ran her Olympic record to 6-0, and she hasn’t lost a fight since London, winning two world championships and a Pan-American Games title in the last four years. She had the American boxing spotlight to herself on Sunday, adding the Val Barker trophy as the best boxer in the tournament to her medal tally. She was joined by Uzbek light flyweight Hasanboy Dusmatov, who won the men’s Val Barker one week after completing his run to gold. Shields is the sixth American to win a Val Barker Trophy, but the first since Roy Jones Jr. (1988).
■ Make it double gold for the first couple of the Olympic boxing tournament. French fighter Tony Yoka joined fiancee Estelle Mossely as gold medal winners, defeating Britain’s Joe Joyce in a super heavyweight bout. Mossely won lightweight gold on her 24th birthday Friday.
■Fazliddin Gaibnazarov defeated Azerbaijan’s Lorenzo Sotomayor in the light welterweight final to become the third boxer from Uzbekistan to win gold in the games, after countryman Shakhobidin Zoirov won flyweight gold with a unanimous decision over Russian Misha Aloian.
The United States rallied from a two-set deficit against Russia to win bronze with a 3-2 victory — 23-25, 21-25, 25-19, 25-19, 15-13. Brazil won gold in a straight-set win over Italy later in the day: 25-22, 28-26, 26-24. Brazil was playing in its fourth consecutive gold-medal match,
Men’s volleyball: