Two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields has been nominated for Black Entertainment Television’s Sportswoman of the Year award.
Shields, an undisputed WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight champion, is the first female boxer to ever be nominated, and this will be announced at the BET Awards on June 9 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, Calif.
Angel Reese, Simone Biles, A’ja Wilson, Coco Gauff, Dawn Staley, JuJu Watkins, Sha’Carri Richardson, and Flau’jae Johnson are the other nominees for Sportswoman of the Year. WNBA star Reese has won the award the past two years.
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No boxer has won the award since it started nominating both men and women in 2001. Gervonta Davis was the last boxing nominee in 2024, when New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson won it, according to Mlive.com.
Shields recently expressed her excitement over her nomination on X. “Thank you BET for recognizing the GWOAT and showing love to women’s boxing amongst so many other great women,” Shields wrote on her X account.
Shields, an undefeated world champion, became the first American boxer to win consecutive Olympic medals in 2012 and 2016 when she won gold in the women’s middleweight division. The Flint native was also awarded Sportswoman of the Year by the Women’s Sports Foundation in October 2023. It was also reported that she is the only American to have won an Olympic gold medal in boxing since 2004.
The 30-year-old boxer was recently suspended because she tested positive for marijuana after defeating heavyweight Danielle Perkins in Michigan on February 3.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has banned the use of marijuana in competition. Shields claimed that the tests only revealed “trace” levels of marijuana and denied ever using it.
The suspension was later lifted. According to the BBC, the Michigan Unarmed Combat Commission, which provisionally suspended Shields’ license, stated on March 6 that she “provided evidence” and that “her conduct no longer poses an imminent threat to the integrity of the sport, the public interest, or the welfare and safety of a contestant.”
