RIO DE JANEIRO _ There is a little bit of Muhammad Ali in Claressa Shields, this Olympic champion boxer from Flint, Mich.
The overwhelming confidence. The bold statements. And the utter lack of fear.
"Those girls have been training their butts off," Shields said of her opponents in the Olympic Games. "I want them to know, I've been training 10 times harder; I hit 10 times harder; I'm 10 times faster."
As Ali once said: "If you even dream of beating me, you'd better wake up and apologize."
Shields, the defending gold medalist, has a chance to become the first U.S. boxer to win gold twice. The men always took that gold medal and turned pro. "It would mean a lot," said Shields, who has a bye in the first round and will start boxing Wednesday. "Hopefully, I knock somebody out."
Shields was in awe of Ali. He gave her hope.
So back in June, just hours after finishing a photo shoot for the ESPN Body Issue, she took a red eye to Louisville, Ky., to attend Ali's memorial service.
"It was very emotional," she said. "I had to be there. It seemed like if I wouldn't have gone, I would have regretted it. I went and it was absolutely what I thought it would be. There were thousands of people there, crying because the Greatest had passed. Everybody loved him. That's why I needed to be around people who actually loved him and appreciated his influence."
Shields met Ali after she won the gold at London Games in 2012. They hugged and posed for a picture, but she wasn't able to really talk with him. But still, she was overwhelmed. "Just to be in the eyesight of him," she said.
Before the service, she went outside. "It was crazy," she said. "Everybody recognized me. They were like, 'Wow, you really came to his memorial?'
"I said, 'Yeah, I loved Muhammad Ali."
"They were like, 'We love him too. We just can't believe you came.' "
She posed for at least 50 pictures.
At the memorial service, she saw what Ali had accomplished in his life and it gave her a clear vision of possibility _ for herself.
"It helped me realize that my life is bigger than boxing," Shields said. "It forced me to think about it. ...What (did I get) from it? Stick to what I believe in, continue boxing and continue to try to bring people to Christ and try to help them."
She has found her voice, speaking out on everything from the Flint water crisis to police shootings to unemployment and to the issues surrounding poverty in places like Flint. Sometimes, it's in press conferences. Sometimes, it's on Twitter.
"It has to be things that I believe in," she said. "There is stuff going on in my world, up where I grew up. I've had so many friends die of gun violence and we are dealing with the water crisis. I want to bring help and hope to my people."
She doesn't want kids to feel hopeless, which is how she felt as a kid.
Still, it's amazing, really, that she has found such a strong voice.
"This is a girl who didn't speak for the first four or five years of her life," said Drea Cooper, a co-director of a documentary about her life. "Oh man, she's one of the most complex people I've ever met. She's stubborn as hell, but I think that stubbornness comes out in ways that are really positive in what she's doing. She wants to beat everybody."
