ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Boxing History - Female Gold Medal

Updated on February 27, 2013

Women's Boxing

"Bennett Sisters" boxing bout around 1910 in the USA. Female boxing was illegal in UK until 1996. In Summer 2012, women boxed in the UK and won medals for their performances.
"Bennett Sisters" boxing bout around 1910 in the USA. Female boxing was illegal in UK until 1996. In Summer 2012, women boxed in the UK and won medals for their performances.

©August 12, 2012. Patty Inglish is the 9th Dan Grandmaster; Patron and Advisor to Team Nigeria Taekwondo and US Representative to the Supreme Council of Sports in Africa-Zone 3. She has trained athletes for 30 years.

Surprising Summer, Surprising Olympic History

It was a most unusual summer.

July 2012 was the hottest on record ever for the US Lower 48, while the Midwest experienced the wrath of the solar flares, storms, and power black outs that had been predicted for the London 2012 Games.

It was the first year that women would be included by all nations of the Games and in the events of Boxing and Wrestling. The media called USA Boxing's men the "winningest team ever" in the lead up to the Games. However, that comment proved false in 2012.

It is not odd enough that an American woman won the Gold Medal in Middleweight Boxing in the 2012 Summer Olympics while US Boxing's men's team won no medals -- Even so, it is odder that the female winner of the Gold Medal was not the specific woman touted for gold by the media, the boxing experts, and the laity.

This was a double surprise all around.

The pre-Games Vogue magazine photo layout did not help Marlen Esparza directly in the ring, but she did win the Bronze Medal in Women's Flyweight. However, she was picked for Gold by the public and the media, who were all encouraged by consistent promotional coverage of her and the photo spread of an attractive woman. They were all wrong. Still, the photo shoot helped to attract new viewers to the Olympics, which is a multimillion-dollar business.

"T-Rex" Shields

Source

The winner of the Gold was not an attractive, small woman held up to the public in a photo layout. The winner was someone all the press and public had ignored - a hardworking 17-year-old high school junior who began to literally fight herself up out of the poverty of Flint, Michigan in a community gym at the age of 11. Where's HER magazine photo layout? It doesn't yet exist, because some think she looks too much like a man.

Quote from YahooSports:

Claressa Shields, still not old enough to vote, capped her surprising Olympic run Thursday by beating Russia's Nadezda Torlopova to win the first U.S. gold medal in women's boxing.

Two other women won Gold in their weight classes as well: Ireland's Katie Taylor and Britain's Nicola Adams. Women's boxing had been banned in Great Britain until 1996. Sixteen years later, women are winning gold medals in the sport.

Recall from the Past

Claressa could have performed a little differently in some respects and I won't use her age as an excuse. Her laughing on the Olympic Podium did not bother me; she'd overcome a difficult life and the many people telling her that she could not box worth a hoot. Sticking her tongue out at her Russian adversary, though, was uncalled for -- It reminds me of the attitude of Cassius Clay when he cavalierly no-showed for his appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Carson looked into the camera and told him never to attempt to return to the show.

Later, he did return and became Muhammad Ali, the 1960 Olympic Gold Medal Winner in Boxing who had a long and successful career, but was beaten in the head to the extent that he contracted Parkinson's.

Age 11 is young to begin training in a brutal sport, even as a way of honoring one's father who is in prison. Age 17 is young to win a Gold Medal in Boxing - the human body is not yet completely developed at that age. I surely do not want to see Claressa with Parkinson's in a few years, or in the dilemma of the heroine of Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby - paralyzed and begging to die. I hope the sport takes care of her.

And if no one will offer her a photo layout, at least put her on a Wheaties Box.

"Only Old Women Watch the Olympics"

Beginning with the Olympic Games in the 2000s, the various media, besides NBC, began to focus on belittling the Summer and Winter Olympic Games as events watched "only by middle-aged and old women." These media went on to include in this category of failure, such reality shows as Dancing With the Stars, Live To Dance, The Sing Off, and several others.

Even if the reporting were true, it is difficult to conceive of female viewers as "only a small group", considering the huge numbers of Baby Boomer females around the world. Whatever the political motivation for charges of failure - whether it was a weak ploy to pry the coverage of the Olympics away form NBC or just what it was, viewership mix changed for certain in 2012.

Summer 2012 saw the very first instance of each and every participating nation including female athletes.

Of course, this would draw a greater number of male viewers, as well as larger numbers of female viewers. Both wanted to see this. Esparza's Vogue photo spread did a lot to help accomplish this increased viewership, as did commercials leading up to the Games that featured women athletes, double-amputee Oscar Pistorius, athletes returning for their 3rd or 4th Olympics, and competitors in their very first Games.

Record viewership was attained in these Olympic Games, as per YahooSports' Claudine Zaps:

"The London Games also had a record number of viewers, on average 31.1 million viewers in prime time, the most-watched non-U.S. summer games since Montreal in 1976, according to Forbes."

That was not just "old women" watching.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)