Shields won the gold medal for the U.S. boxing team and is the Youngest boxer to ever win Gold.
Just a few short hours before her gold medal bout, 17-year-old boxing phenom Claressa Shields tweeted from the London Olympics scene, "God is awesome!!!"
About an hour later, she tweeted, "I don't even need my gangsta music today.... I'm already ready to handle business!"Soon after, it became apparent that Shields certainly was ready, defeating Russia's Nadezda Torlopova Thursday to claim the only gold medal for the U.S. boxing team (men and women) while becoming the second-youngest boxer ever to win gold.
"I don't even know that this is real right now," said Shields to a crowd of reporters after her match. "I'm surprised I didn't cry. This is something I wanted for a long time."
Her life story and young career, already the subject of a documentary being filmed in her hometown of Flint, Mich., and various fight locations, including London, is one that many observers view as an epic script for a Hollywood movie.
"In the bowels of the F.W.C. Berston Fieldhouse in Flint, Mich., with old equipment when it was there and makeshift gear when it was not, Claressa Shields worked," wrote Sports Illustrated boxing analyst Chris Mannix after Shields' gold medal win. "There was no promised payoff, no hint that boxing would elevate her to a better life. Yet since age 11 she was there, nearly every day, battering heavy bags until they split, sparring with boys because there were no girls who could go rounds with her."
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I'm so glad she won. She worked hard and it was definitely her time to shine. So proud of all that she has gone through to get where she is now.
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