© Jim Everett / Saddo Boxing

The U.S. boxing team had a strong finish on Wednesday, August 13, 2008, ending the opening round bouts with both their heavyweight and light flyweight fighters moving into the next round of competition.

The first victory came from the raw and inexperienced hands of 6’9” Deontay Wilder from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who has less than three years experience in boxing. Wilder was fortunate to get a great draw facing 6’2” Abdelaziz Touilbini from Algeria .

During the first round, Touilbini scored a point early in the bout while Wilder was tentative, throwing only one punch at a time. Wilder was clearly tight and was down 2-0 at the end of the round. More...

Worker's Gymnasium continues to represent hostile territory for Team Australia as three more boxers from Down Under have been defeated in Beijing.

On Tuesday, 17 year old flyweight Stephen Sutherland of Melbourne had difficulty scoring points against Tunisian veteran Walid Charif and was beaten 14-2. As with the defeat of boxer Todd Kidd earlier this week, Team Australia coaches have questioned what they see as blatant one-sided scoring by the Olympic judging.

Also yesterday, bantamweight Luke Boyd of Sydney gave a good performance but came up short on a score of 18-8 to Botswana's Khumiso Ikgopoleng.

Today in Beijing, the difficulties continued for Team Australia as the man considered the best hope to medal was turned back.

Melbourne heavyweight Brad Pitt put up a good fight but couldn't get past the efforts of Morocco's Mohammed Arjaoui, losing 11-6 after four rounds.

Only super heavyweight Dan Behan has yet to compete at the games as the Gladstone based boxer will meet Kazakhstan's Ruslan Myrsatayev later today and will hopefully join team mate Anthony Little in staying alive for the second round.

The victory drought in Beijing is finally over for Team Australia as Western Australian lightweight Anthony Little outclassed Namibian boxer Julius Indongo today by a score of 14-2 but team mate Paul Fleming fell short in a hard fought featherweight clash with France's Khedafi Djelkhir

It wasn't pretty but Little managed to nullify the height and reach advantages enjoyed by the African, proving a hard target to hit while landing solid counters and generally out-hustling Indongo.

The Perth based 27 year old brought a good deal of experience to the table, having won the Chemistry Cup in Germany and Oceania Championships already this year as well as making it into the second round of the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The 25 year old Indongo took Bronze at this year's AIBA African qualifying tournament but wasn't ready for the busy Australian.

Next up for Little is a much higher hurdle in the form of Russia's Alexey Tishchenko, the 2004 Olympic Gold Medallist at featherweight now campaigning as a lightweight, who outpointed Tunisian boxer Saifeddine Nejmaoui today by a score of 10-2.

Brisbane featherweight Paul Fleming took the fight to French opponent Khedafi Djelkhir earlier in the day and while the gritty southpaw ruled the first round, the European boxer adjusted and won the next three frames. More...