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Claressa Shields and Shakur Stevenson punch tickets to Rio

Fighters Network
18
Mar

 

Photo courtesy of USA Boxing.

Claressa Shields wins semifinal bout to qualify for Rio. Photo courtesy of USA Boxing.

Claressa Shields had a very productive 21st birthday and teenager Shakur Stevenson kept his record against international competition unblemished as both led a contingent of four Americans who punched their tickets to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio on Thursday.

Flint, Michigan’s Shields earned her second straight Olympic berth on her 21st birthday and will attempt to win gold again in August after she made history in 2012 by becoming the first American woman to earn that distinction in London. Shields dominated the Dominican Republic’s Yenebier Guillen Benitez for a unanimous decision victory in a semifinal middleweight match in Thursday’s Americas Qualifier in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

“I can officially say I’m a two-time Olympian, one-time Olympic gold medalist,” said Shields, according to a USA Boxing press release. Shields will face Canada’s Ariane Fortin-Bruchu in the finals on Saturday. “It feels great,” she went on. “I’m ready for Rio, I’m ready to conquer the other side of the world now.”



Newark, New Jersey’s Stevenson earned a 3-0 decision against Venezuela’s Jose Vicente Diaz Azocar in a bantamweight semifinal on Thursday to raise his international record to 22-0. The first U.S. male junior and youth world champion and Youth Olympic Games gold medalist, Stevenson, 18, will face Argentina’s Ezequiel Alberto Melian in the finals on Saturday.

The oldest of nine brothers and sisters, Stevenson was the most Outstanding Boxer at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials and is viewed as one America’s best hopes for gold in Rio.

“It feels good knowing that all my dreams have come true and all my hard work has paid off,” Stevenson said, according to the release. “I saw a couple of close decisions that I felt were given away so my main point of this fight was to make sure that nothing was close and there was no way for them to give it to the other guy. It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world knowing that my mom is back home smiling. She’s going to be happy for me. All my brothers and sisters are going to be happy for me.”

Stevenson said he was motivated by watching the 2012 U.S. Olympic team fail to medal for the first time in Olympic history in which the United Stated participated. “When I was younger, I was watching the 2012 Olympics and they didn’t do so well,” he said. “And I decided that I wanted to be the one to put the United States back on top. I definitely plan to capitalize on this opportunity.”

Also qualifying for the U.S. were lightweight Nico Hernandez (Whichita, Kansas) and middleweight Charles Conwell (Cleveland, Ohio). Heavyweight Cam F Awesome (Lenexa, Kansas) dropped a semifinal bout and will try to qualify on Friday in a consolation bout while lightweight Gary Russell (Capitol Heights, Maryland), brother to featherweight title holder Gary Russell Jr., failed to qualify on Thursday.

Any of the American men who fail to qualify this week will another chance to make the Rio Games at the APB/WSB Olympic Qualifying Event in Sofia, Bulgaria, May 13-22. The final chance to qualify will be held June 7-19 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

 

Mitch Abramson is a former reporter for the NY Daily News. He can be reached on Twitter at: @Mabramson13.

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