Sports

Flint boxer Claressa Shields took a big step toward her Olympic dream Saturday night, winning the middleweight title at the USA boxing trials.

USA Boxing summed up Shields performance in the championship final:

Teenage sensation Claressa Shields (Flint, Mich.) continued her amazing run through the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in her rematch with fellow middleweight Tika Hemingway (Pittsburgh, Pa.). She once again got off to a quick start in the bout, racking up 13 points to 9 for Hemingway in the opening two rounds. She continued to build on her lead in the third to claim at 19-13 advantage with one round remaining. Hemingway could not dent her deficit and Shields went on to win a 23-18 decision. The victory gave Shields the first-ever middleweight crown and completed the trio of boxers who will vie for spots in London. Yet Shields accomplishments didn’t end there, she was also named Outstanding Boxer of the Tournament, only her second in the open division. 

Shields must now prepare for the World championships.  The top eight women boxers at the world championships will qualify for the Olympic tournament in London.

I’ve coached high school boy’s hockey teams for almost a decade.  But a few years ago, I spent two years helping out the Michigan women’s hockey team – and I learned a lot more than they did.   

It’s worth noting that I’m comparing only high school boys and college women, based solely on my observations of two hockey teams.  Your mileage may vary. 

My education started on day one.

If you're a Detroit hockey fan, you're probably celebrating the Red Wings' recent record-breaking home win streak at the storied Joe Louis Arena---a bit of magic for a veteran team in an aging building---but across the river there's a piece of hockey history that make's "the Joe" look like the new kid on the ice arena block.

16 year old Claressa Shields dominated another more experienced fighter in Tuesday's Olympic women's boxing trials.   Shields is now a step closer to her goal of representing the United States at the London Olympics this summer.  

ESPN reports:

Claressa Shields kept up her surprising charge through the middleweight bracket with a 31-12 victory over Andrecia Wasson. The impressive 16-year-old built on her upset of Franchon Crews, the top American 165-pounder, a day earlier.

16 year old Claressa Shields is the youngest fighter trying to win a spot on the U.S. Olympic boxing team.   

She made her case for representing the U.S. in London this summer by defeating the top ranked woman in her weight class last night. 

Here's what the Seattle Spokesman-Review said about Shields performance last night:

The 16-year-old middleweight from Flint, Mich., turned the first U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Women’s Boxing on end Monday night with a dominant performance in upsetting top-seeded Franchon Crews in a crackling highlight to the opening round.

And on a night when nerves seemed to earn a draw in more than a handful of bouts, the youngest competitor among the 24 trying to take the next step to the London Olympics betrayed none.

“I wanted it – I wanted to fight her as soon as I qualified,” said Shields. “She was saying she’s the best, so if she’s the best, I wanted her. Piece of work.”

It’s hardly over for Crews, a five-time national champion. But now she’ll have to fight her way back in the double-elimination event, as only the champions in the three weight classes qualify for the AIBA World Championships in China this May.

A top-eight finish there guarantees fighters a spot in the first Olympic women’s boxing competition in July.

Shields will face another Michigan fighter in her next bout. Centerline's Andrecia Wasson was the 2010 Welterweight World Champion.

It’s been five days since the Super Bowl, just enough time to give us a little perspective. Was it a football game? A concert? A competition for the Clio Award? Or some bizarrely American combination of all three?

Let’s start with the least important: The football game. You might have caught bits of it, squeezed between the ads and the show. Those were the people who ran really fast and wore clothes. For the Super Bowl’s first 30 years, most of the games were boring blowouts. I suspect even the players can’t recall the scores. But the halftime shows and the ads were hard to forget, and often featured a member of the Jackson family having his hair ignited or her wardrobe mysteriously malfunction.