Claressa Shields got in the ring on February 2012, boxing in the 75 kg weigh class, to defeat all the best boxers in USA during the Olympic Team Trials held in Spokane, Washington.
I asked, “Who is that young boxer?” I was amazed of her talents, mesmerized by the beauty of her boxing movements and blown away by her power. Ah, and on top of that, her dancing in the ring.
I went to the weigh-ins one morning and spoke with her and her coach.
“Where have you been hiding her?” I asked coach Jason Crutchfield, who has been her lifetime teacher.
“She was getting ready, that’s all.” Crutchfield told me with a big smile.
I started a conversation with the 16-year-old teenager, and her serious approaches about boxing showed me, that she wasn’t only special because of boxing. She is an old soul inside a teen body that could pass for a 20 something year old young woman. But she is only an adolescent.
After her performances in Spokane, Claressa went to Canada for the Continental championships and beat all the best boxers of the Americas as easy as if she was playing a children’s game.
Everyone in Canada, AIBA officials, executives, organizers, and the public knew then that Shields was the one destined to win gold at the Olympics and make all of the Americas proud.
“She will win gold in London”, said Domingo Solano, president of the Americas Boxing Confederation.
In May, during the World Championships in China, Claressa suffered the first defeat of her life with Great Britain’s Savannah Marshall, but her path to gold gave her the qualification to the Olympics through the finish of the opponent who beat her. And Marshall was the champion.
Claressa’s lesson was on time and she understood that no matter how good she was, she could be defeated. Her only loss since she started boxing at the age of eleven.
Today Claressa Shields will have the most important bout of her life at only seventeen years of age. Her twitter account is full of messages letting her know how proud all her 2,647 followers are and sending best wishes in her bout for gold.
How a teen can just get in the ring, owned by other experienced boxers who are almost double her age, and take everything from her hands as easy as an unpredictable storm.
Shields, USA, Taylor, Ireland, and Nicola Adams, Great Britain will be competing for Gold this afternoon in London in the most important games of all.
Their opponents are USA vs Russia, Ireland vs Russia and GBR vs China. Russia and China are perhaps the most powerful countries in Women’s Boxing.
