over the last five or six years. Well s

Claressa Shields picked up where she left off four years ago.Shields finished the 2012 Olympics in London atop the podium receiving the womens middleweight gold medal. On Wednesday, she began her quest to repeat by winning her 165-pound opening bout at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.Shields, of Flint, Michigan, won a unanimous four-round decision against Iaroslava Iaukushina of Russia in their quarterfinal match.Shields, also the reigning amateur world champion, began to let her hands go in the final minute of the first round and continued to control the pace in the second round.She was the heavier puncher than Iaukushina and landed with authority during the fight as the crowd chanted USA! USA!Shields, 21, continued to take it to Iaukushina, whom she defeated in a 2014 tournament, during the third and fourth rounds; the women fight four two-minute rounds in the Olympics as opposed to three three-minute rounds for the men.Shields closed the fight by landing a powerful left hook -- her best punch -- that staggered Iaukushina and forced the referee to administer a standing-eight count in the final seconds of the fight.Despite the dominating win, Shields thought she was a little rusty and that she could have been sharper.I wanted to go out there and outbox her from the outside, use my jab and use my right hand but I just couldnt get her timing, Shields said. She didnt want to get close enough. After she hit me a couple times, I was like Im going to have to take it to the inside with her because it was hard for me to get her timing. I hit her with a lot of good jabs though, a lot of good right hands. It wasnt as sharp as I wanted it to be.I just did a good job transitioning. As far as overall performance, about a C. I definitely got the rust off. The game plan was to go out there and fight her like I did when I fought her in 2014 but this time my body just wouldnt do it. She just kept swinging all wild. Whenever I got close to her, I couldnt get her timing so I just fought her on the inside and I did a great job at that. I beat her with every combination on the inside.While there have already been gold medals awarded in some of the mens weight classes, Shields had to wait until the 11th day of the Rio Games to make her debut. She said the wait was worth it.Ive been waiting but the wait is over. Im glad to get my first fight out of the way, Shields said. Ill be resting up the rest of [Wednesday] and then [Thursday] and then Im back at it again on [Friday]. Im excited. I definitely got some ring rust off. Im taking it one fight, one round at a time. Im definitely looking forward to my next opponent.Shields, who assured herself of at least a bronze medal with the win, will next fight Friday afternoon when she meets Dariga Shakimova, of Kazakhstan, in the semifinals.Im definitely prepared to be here, Shields said. Ive had more time than anyone else on my team to prepare. Ive been in training camp almost three months. Im here to get an Olympic gold medal. Im not here to settle for bronze and silver; its not my thing. I want to be a two-time Olympic gold medalist and I think Im getting pretty close. Ive got two more fights.Air Max 97 Pas Cher Chine . Neymar curled home a free kick from just outside the area to put the 2014 World Cup host ahead in the 44th minute. Three minutes after the break, a simple through pass from Paulinho freed Oscar and the Chelsea star rounded goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong to extend Brazils lead. Air Max Pas Cher Chine . In Europe, top teams seem to be largely happy with their squads after spending nearly $1 billion in the off-season. And although English league clubs are unlikely to splash cash in January, Arsenal and Chelsea could be tempted to strengthen their squads with new strikers. http://www.airmaxpaschersite.fr/ . Coach Mike Munchak says Fokou stretched ligaments in his left knee Oct. 13 against Seattle, which could keep out up to five weeks even though the linebacker didnt need surgery. Air Max 720 Moins Cher . -- Team after team passed on Andre Ellington in the draft. Air Max 96 Noir et Blanche . Paul Pierce couldnt believe he missed at the end. Young scored a season-high 26 points to spark a huge effort from the leagues most productive bench, and Los Angeles beat the Brooklyn Nets 99-94 on Wednesday night after blowing a 27-point lead.Beyond the viral social media campaign, past the flood of valedictory books and away from the David Parkin documentary about graduates of Alastair Clarksons coaching box, Hawthorn remains a football club vying for an AFL flag this September like all the rest.Three consecutive premierships carry with them a certain level of baggage. Theres the talk of making further history by winning a fourth, and there is also the lionisation of the club for what it has already done. These days the bookstores sport as many tomes about Hawthorn premierships as they once did about football itself. Booming membership has helped spawn a Hawks industry selling, to crib from Cut Copy, a kind of strange nostalgia for the future.At the same time Clarksons record of achievement means he is being hailed and almost fetishised in a manner seldom seen; certainly not since the cult of Kevin Sheedy reached its peak either side of the 2000 season. To watch Parkin interviewing Brendon Bolton, Damien Hardwick, Leon Cameron and Luke Beveridge about Clarkson was to get some insight about the environment he fostered, but it was also to stop and think: hang on, isnt this stuff usually saved for coaches and players in the retired column? With a contract recently extended until 2019, his finish line is some ways off.Certainly Clarkson expressed an air of detachment from the way he and his club have been turned into a museum piece, even as they continue to contend. The great Hawthorn side of the 2010s is not ready to be the subject of historical discussion, even though the conversation has already been going on for quite some time.No. 1, I havent seen it, Clarkson said of Parkins documentary, No. 2, Ive got no control over it and No. 3, theyre all at their different clubs doing what theyre trying to do to help their clubs and were doing what were trying to do in this moment right now and thats win a game of footy. It becomes pretty inconsequential really.Its not hard to imagine him speaking similarly about the video dreamed up by the clubs marketing wing to generate talk about the finals. Staged and CGI-enhanced footage of a Hawk grabbing a snake then dropping it onto a barbecue group of rival supporters - Geelong, natch - went around the world. But it could only have been the product of a club with A) plenty of money to throw around and B) concerns somewhere within the building that these finals campaigns are becoming a bit of old hat.That sort of thinking is anathema to Clarkson, who smiled when noting the bigger than usual turnout of fans and media to the clubs final training session of the week at Waverley. While some of his players have followed the embrace the hunt slogan being used by the aforementioned marketing departmennt and bestowed favouritism on other clubs, Clarkson leavened his enthusiasm for finals with sound logic: Hawthorn are here again, Hawthorn know how to get it done in September, Hawthorn have the experience required to face any finals obstacle.ddddddddddddIm not really too concerned by form lines and that sort of stuff, he said. Youve got to win games of footy in September, not August. Our form in Septembers been pretty strong and if we can reproduce that type of form were going to be hard to beat.You just cope with whatevers put in front of you, you address it. The benefit for this group is, its a really experienced group, theyve had a lot of hurdles over the journey and whatevers put in front of them they usually find a way to get around.Nothing has summed that up more effectively than Hawthorns record in tight games this year. Six of their wins have come in matches decided by fewer than 10 points. While the rapier-like foot skills and ball movement of previous years has been less prevalent, game awareness, composure and sheer bloodyminded determination have been evident in abundance. Finals-winning characteristics.We dont plan to have close games, no-one really does, Clarkson said. You focus on playing your best footy and you hope thats going to get you across the line whether its by a single kick or a couple of kicks in it.But when its presented to us we back our players to be able to cope with whats in front of them and weve been able to do that numerous times over the course of this year and indeed over the last five or six years. Well see what happens but its likely to be pretty close tomorrow night, so hopefully we can handle those scenarios pretty well again.Much of the Hawthorn story has been forged through meetings with Geelong, the club with which it has wrestled for AFL supremacy over much of the past decade. Walking into the MCG on Friday night there will be a sensation of more history about to be made, another chapter for all those books, another moment for the likes of Parkin and others to put into context.Clarkson and his players will, in time, join in the merry-go-round of history, marketing and discussion. But they want to stave off their own period of reflection by keeping things going this September. A premiership is a premiership, four in a row or not.Its been spoken about less than last year to be fair, amongst both our coaches and our players, Clarkson said. It hasnt been something thats been used one bit at this point. We know weve got a formidable opponent tomorrow night and that sort of stuff is still a fair way down the track for us. ' ' '