17-Year-Old Boxer Claressa Shields Had An Amazing Reaction To Winning Gold

After receiving her gold medal — the first female middleweight boxing gold ever awarded at the Olympics — Shields’ excitement takes over her body.

1. London 2012 is the first Olympics to feature women’s boxing. And Claressa Shields, a 17-year-old from Flint, Michigan, is one of America’s most talented female boxers.

For more information about Shields, read this wonderful New Yorker story from a few months ago.

Image by MURAD SEZER / Reuters

2. Today, she proved as much, beating Nadezda Torlopova of Russia for the middleweight gold medal.

3. As she receives her gold, you can see Shields begin to shake. Presumably, it’s hitting her just then: she’s the first to do this in American history.

4. Shields’ reaction once the medal is around her neck might be the purest distillation of what the Olympics mean that we’ve seen yet this Games.

5. This is history, victory, and joy, wrapped up into the same expression. Claressa Shields is the best.