Flint Boxer Claressa Shields Wins Gold in Rio 2016 Olympics, Makes History

Boxer Claressa Shields, the defending Olympic middleweight (75 kg) champion, won a gold medal Sunday in the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games with a unanimous decision over the Netherlands’ Nouchka Fontijn, making history along the way.

The Flint resident is the first U.S. boxer in history to win back-to-back gold medals. Oliver Kirk won two gold medals in the bantamweight and featherweight titles in 1904.

The now 21-year-old boxer split with Jason Crutchfield, her longtime coach and a father figure since she began boxing at age 11, and began making decisions for herself. She moved to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in May, USA Today reported.

“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’clock in the morning and he’d be like, what are you doing? Go to bed,” she said.

“Now, it’s like, I have to tell myself to do those things. Go to bed. Drink right. Eat right. Don’t stay up too late. Don’t stay in the shower for 20 minutes, because it’s like a steam room. Get in there for 5 minutes and get out. I have to keep reminding myself these things. I’m telling myself to focus.”

Shields has a compelling life story. Born into poverty, she had lived in 11 homes before she reached the age of 12. She distrusted others, with good reason.

As a child, she was molested and raped but “channeled all that anger into boxing, and that’s why I’m so successful at it,” she told ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue 2016. “Boxing really helped with all of that. It calmed me down a lot and gave me discipline and structure.”

She was the caregiver in her family, often giving up her own meals so her brother and sister could eat. “Without that struggle,” she told ESPN, “I don’t think I would be as strong as I am.”

Flint was a tough place to grow up before the current lead water crisis. More than 40 percent of its 98,300 residents live in poverty — the second-most impoverished city in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s also consistently ranked by the FBI as one of America’s most dangerous cities (Flint wasn’t ranked last year because its population dipped below 100,000).

In Rio de Janeiro, Shields said she was fighting for more than just a medal.

“I'm fighting for my family, I'm fighting for my future, I'm fighting for my city — to give them some hope and faith, because it's so bad in Flint,” she told ESPN. “I always fight harder than I would if I were fighting for just a medal.”

Shields hopes the gold medal is her family’s ticket out of Flint, where violent death is such “an everyday thing” that no one seems to notice anymore, she said in the ESPN interview.

“I don't ever want to be stuck in a situation where I have to live like that or my family has to live like that,” she said. “That's why I sacrifice. Once I win another Olympic gold medal, I'm moving my family out of Flint. I have a little brother who is 18, and he can be a victim of gun violence. I have a sister who can maybe get shot. I have a nephew who I don't want to grow up there because he may be shot or killed just because of the gang violence.

“I don't want that for my family. I don't want that for anybody's family.”

Images: Team USA via Flickr / Creative Commons and, above, Getty Images