The public address announcer blared, “The gold medalist and Olympic champion . . .” and that’s about the point that 17-year old Claressa Shields lost it. She started laughing uncontrollably before the announcer could even say her name. And once the medal was around her neck, she immediately clutched it, waving it from side to side and lifting it above her head. The excitement had taken over every nerve and every muscle.
“I thought I was gonna have a seizure,” Shields said later.
She laughed throughout the medal ceremony, after her 19-12 victory over Russian Nadezda Torlopova made Shields, a middleweight, the only American boxer at these Olympics — and the first U.S. woman — to win boxing gold. The whole time she kept grabbing at the shiny disc, making sure it was real and that it was really hers. Truth is, that medal might be the most believable part of Shields’s journey.
More from Rick Maese, The Washington Post
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