Olympic Boxing: Tough Going For Team Australia Fighters In Beijing

Day two of the Beijing Olympics proved as fruitless as day one for Team Australia as two more lads from Down Under were sent home without getting near a medal of any kind.

Team Captain Gerard O’Mahony had the experience of competing in the 2004 Olympics but lost a tough one at welterweight to Vitalie Grusac of Moldova while light welter Todd Kidd was badly outpointed by Morocco’s Driss Moussaid.

29 year old O’Mahony of Canberra waged a gritty defensive battle against Grusac, using his impressive countering skills to keep the Moldovan honest but couldn’t generate the offense necessary to win and suffered a 7-2 loss as a result.

23 year old Kidd was making his Olympic debut but the Caboolture man ran into a buzzsaw in the form of Moussaid as the experienced Moroccan campaigner painted the Aussie by a wide margin of 23-2, although much of Kidd’s efforts over the first three frames seemed to be discounted by the judges.

Team Australia’s ability to improve upon the five Olympic medals won since 1908 is getting dimmer but still to compete are super heavy Dan Beahan, heavyweight Brad Pitt, lightweight Anthony Little, featherweight Paul Fleming, bantamweight Luke Boyd and flyweight Stephen Sutherland.

Middleweight Jarrod Fletcher lost on day one of the competition to an opponent he beat just months ago in prior competition, Emilio Correa, by a score of 17-4.