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Having a first round bye, light heavyweight Tony Jeffries faced Colombian Eleider Alvarez on Thursday. It was a steady opening round as both men sussed each other out, but neither scored a point in the initial stanza.
Jeffries finally gets the first point with almost a minute of round two gone. A short left followed by a short right scored, which didn’t register immediately on the computer scoreboard.
Moments later, a right lands from Jeffries but in the closing seconds, the Colombian lands a right and the score is 2-1 end of the second frame.
Both men come out looking more motivated in round three and Jeffries immediately scores. A fairly even round finishes with a 4-3 score to Jeffries.
A good right from Jeffries lands in the opening seconds of the final round, but he holds on momentarily when Alvarez lands a great uppercut. It’s 5-4 to Jeffries and he just needs to keep out of trouble for the last half minute, but Alvarez scores again and it’s a messy end with a score of 5 all.
The decider is “count-back”, taking the judge’s individual scores and discounting the best and worst. Jeffries is delighted when he is announced as the winner and goes through to the quarter-finals.
Bradley Saunders’s faced Frenchman Alexis Vastine for his second-round contest. Saunders head already beaten Vastine easily in the World Championships at Chicago.
The score is 3-2 at the end of the first frame. Throwing some wild punches – it’s clear that Saunders hasn’t settled in by the second round and the session closes at 7-3 to the Frenchman.
It’s a messy end to the final round with Vastine winning by 11-7.
Afterward, Saunders admitted he hadn’t studied Vastine as much as he should have, whereas the Frenchman had “done his homework”.
British coach Terry Edwards said that Saunders had let his “heart rule his head”.
Billy Joe Saunders also went out of the Olympics earlier the same day when he lost to Cuban Carlos Banteaux Suarez by a score of 13-6
