Amateur boxing has many major tournaments, but none as exciting as the one that comes but once every 4 years. This is the one that makes heroes and jump starts pro careers. Many of the greatest in history have taken home gold, silver, and bronze medals, from Cassius Clay to Roy Jones Jr. to Andre Ward have all medalled for the US. Internationally, boxing’s popularity makes medalists at all weight classes into well known athletes. Brahim Asloum still benefits from his gold medal in 2000 during a pro career fought almost entirely in his home of France. Merely making the Olympics is often enough to get someone hype in a pro career: Guys like Vic Darchinyan and Samuel Peter never won medals, but merely getting to the big show opened doors leading to title fights later down the road. Who then will be the success stories of this Olympic Games?

Before my prognostication, a brief overview of amateur boxing. At the end of the 70s, it had been decided that for the safety of the fighters, a points based system closer to tae kwon do or point karate would be instituted for amateur boxing, and headgear put in place. This often is confusing to viewers used to professional boxing. Blows can be scored to the body or head using only the white tip of the glove. Additionally, scoring is not done on a round by round basis, but rather utilizing a system similar in some fashion to Compubox. Each of the five judges at ringside are afforded a box with which buttons are placed. The buttons corresponding to a fighter must be pressed by 3 of the 5 judges within a fairly tight window for a blow to be scored.

Olympic styled scoring then generally favors offensive fighters and guys who headhunt. Body punches are tougher to see on multiple sides of the ring and thus don’t score as easily as head shots. The headgear generally prevents major knockouts and fights are stopped significantly sooner than they are in professional fights. Standing 8 counts are regularly administered for stunned fighters. Fighters can lose in a variety of ways. Most fights will go to decision, however there are also stoppages. The majority of stoppages at the games will be classified as RSCOS, which is a really fancy acronym for exceeding the mercy rule. In the Olympics or any major tournament using Olympic scoring (Pan Ams, Caribbean Games, World Championships, etc), a fighter who is losing by 20 or more points in any round other than the 4th and final round will be stopped by the referee.

Now that we’ve done that, let’s go talk about the fights, shall we? There’s a lot of interesting story lines coming into these Games. First and foremost was the surprising success of the Chinese fighters at the 2007 World Championships. Boxing was illegal in China until the mid 1980s, and the acceleration in its development during this decade (generally spurred by the introduction of ex-Eastern Bloc boxing coaches) lead to a surprising 5 medals at a record sized World Championships field. The team is led by 48KG gold medal favorite Zou Shiming. Shiming has won the gold at the last two World Championships in 2005 and 2007 and seems to be virtually unstoppable in ‘08. The only major challenger was Yan Barthelemey, the 2004 Gold Medalist from Cuba, but he took himself out of the running when he defected to Germany to start a pro career last year. He looks like the odds on favorite, regardless of draw, to win China’s first boxing gold.

Another major story has been the rocky road of the American team. Once a powerhouse, the US sees only two strong shots at gold medals in 2008 and failed to qualify a super heavyweight for the first time ever. Raushee Warren and Demetrius Andrade both won gold medals in their respective classes in Chicago last year, but no one else was able to crack into the medals. Only Luis Yanez at 48KG seems well positioned to make a run at a silver or bronze. Additionally, issues with the team manager and training have created many questions about the operations of USA Boxing. 6 of the 9 members (Yanez and Warren included) were nearly cut from the team at various points for infractions both real and potentially imagined.

Finally, the Cubans are back after skipping last years World Championships. However, they’ve lost 5 members of their Olympic teams in the last 18 months, including four past gold medalists. None of their fighters are considered to be major threats in this Olympics, potentially ending their dominance in the sport.

Now to look at each weight class:

48KG: Shiming is definitely the one to watch here. He’s expected to get gold and anything else would be a massive disappontment for the Chinese. Harry Tanamor and Luis Yanez have both squeaked by with fairly easy first round bouts and look to progress in the tournament. Nordine Oubaali, brother of pro Ali Oubaali (who was in a fantastic fight Wednesday night on ESPN2) is a potential darkhorse for France.

51KG: Raushee Warren is the first US boxer to appear in two Olympics since the 70s, and he’s the favorite to win here. He’s got a decent fighter in front of him from Korea for an opener. Vincenzo Picardi of Italy and the Thai Somjit Jongjohor represent his toughest tasks in the games. Another favorite to watch will be Puerto Rican flagbearer McWilliams Arroyo.

54KG: Favorite Sergey Vodopyanov is scheduled to fight World Championships bronze medalist McJoe Arroyo in the opening draw in what should be a barn burner. Mongolian 2007 silver medalist Enkbaht Badar-Uugan is stuck fighting the suddenly emergent Oscar Valdez of Mexico as well. America’s hope at the weight, Gary Russell, is already scratched due to weight issues.

57KG: Another Russian is favored here (Albert Selimov), but he’s facing his opponent from the finals of the World Championships, Vasyl Lomachenko, in the first round. It gets no better than that.

60KG: Frankie Gavin of the UK looked to be the favorite coming in but was scratched two days before hand when it was clear he couldn’t make the weight. This blows the division wide open. Domenico Valentino won silver at the World Championships but is clearly not favored to repeat such success. Kim Song Guk of North Korea is well travelled and prepared, as is Alexey Tishchenko of Russia. Yordenis Ugas of Cuba is likely to be very competitive as well.

64KG: Bradley Saunders looks to be the only good chance for a British medal in boxing, having gotten a weak Ghanan opponent to open. Serik Sapiyev has won gold at the last two World Championships, however, and comes in a prohibitive favorite.

69KG: Demetrius Andrade looks to be a future pro star, but he’s gonna have to win here to get that going. Really, its a weak field he’s competing against, which only helps his cause. His biggest potential opponent is sitting at home in Cuba following a failed defection attempt.

75KG: Barring an injury, Matvey Korobov wins this. He’s the best fighter in the Olympics, pound for pound. He’s won the old at the last two World Championships and at the 2006 European Championships. 4 of his 6 fights at the 2007 World Championships were stopped early (he was ahead 17-1 midway through round 2 of the semifinal), and the other two won by margins of 19 and 25 points respectively. American Shawn Estrada has an outside shot for a bronze, but nothing more. Korobov has already announced he’s turning pro after the Olympic Games, and that is gonna be a very big deal.

81KG: Artur Beterbiev was surprised last year when he ended up with merely a silver medal at the World Championships but again comes in the favorite. A variety of former russian republic based fighters provide his only serious challenge.

91KG: The small heavyweights are a wide open field this year, which contrasts greatly from the expectation. 18 months ago, the gold medal was practically already in the possession of Russian Roman Romanchuk, but he ended up getting upset in the national championships and has been in a personal downward spiral ever since. Italian Clemente Russo was the surprise gold medalist in Chicago, and his power punching style is fairly entertaining. Equally fun to watch is a fighter from the Sultan Ibragimov/Vassily Jirov mold from Russia named Rakhim Chakhkiev who’s the favorite coming in and is a pretty well built volume puncher. Pan Am Games gold medalist Osmay Acosta looks strong coming in. America has sent the young and relatively inexperienced Deontay Wilder to the Games. Wilder is 6′7”, making him significantly taller than his competition. However, he was bounced out of the first round of the World Championships. He rebounded this past year by defeating Chakhkiev in a USA/Russia meet, only further clouding the picture. However, virtually every strong fighter has a weak opponent in the opening draw, making the next round wildly competitive.

91+KG: Ah, the super heavyweights. America proved once and for all that its no longer a dominant force at this class by sending no one to the Olympics. Michael Hunter Jr. was our best hope and ended up being bounced around at the American Qualifier by some South American heavyweights you’ve never heard of. That doesn’t make this a waste of time. Cuban Robert Alfonso fought like Frankenstein at the Pan Ams and can’t repeat that here in Bejing if he wants to win, particularly when he’s drawn a top heavyweight like Vyacheslav Glazkov in the first round. British hope David Price seems almost doomed having drawn gold medal favorite Islam Timurziev in round 1, and with so many strong fighters going out in the first round, it spells good things for China’s nearly 7 foot giant, Zhang Zhilei. Another big storyline revolves around Roberto Cammarelle, who used the injury of Timurziev to win his first major international tournament after repeatedly ending up the bride’s maid last year. He’s stuck around for another Olympics for a shot at gold.