By Jake Donovan

Team USA sends its third member to the round of 16, as featherweight Raynell Williams was successful in his opening round bid against Alessio di Savino of Italy.

It was all Williams, as the 19-year old Cleveland (OH)-based southpaw jumped out to an early 4-0 lead, forcing Savino to unsuccessfully play catchup for the remainder of the bout. Savino scored his first and only point in the early seconds of round two after landing consecutive left hooks, only for Williams to immediately counter with a straight left.

Up 7-1 after two rounds, Williams was content with using lateral movement and forcing the Italian to come forward in riding out the rest of the fight. It didn’t make for great theater, but allowed the American to join teammates Shawn Estrada and Demetrius Andrade in the next round of the Olympic Games, where he promises a more disciplined performance.

“My big thing was to stay calm,” said Williams after the opening round win. “You get hype and forget what you’re there to do. I tried to stay relaxed and use my jab, though I didn’t use it as much as I’d like to. It’s my first bout, and I’ll do better in my next fight.”

He’ll need to if he wants to advance to the quarterfinals. He pulls a tough draw in the next round, as he faces France’s Khedafi Djelkhir, who took a 13-9 win over Paul Fleming of Australia in a spirited opening round battle.

Djelkhir was a featherweight participant in the 2004 Olympics for France, losing in the round of 16. It remains to be seen if he can advance beyond that point this year, but has already shown the ability to overcome adversity, rallying back from an early 4-1 deficit to rack up six straight points, including a standing eight count, in round two to pull ahead and stay there.

Fleming rallied back in the third, pulling to a 7-7 tie midway through the round, only for Djelkhir to tack on two more points to escape with a slight lead entering the final round. Fleming would never get closer than within a point, as Djelkhir scored another knockdown en route to a five-point round and a 13-9 win.

The afternoon began with a roar, as the raucous crowd at the Beijing Workers Gymnasium erupted for homeland favorite Li Yang. The Chinese featherweight gave ‘em plenty to cheer about, easily handling Robson Conceição of Brazil to the tune of a 12-4 margin.

Yang, who won the bronze at the World Amateur Championships at featherweight last fall, opened up to a 3-0 lead and never looked back. His punches were often wide, giving Conceição a chance to land up the middle, but the Brazilian lacked the discipline to take advantage. Yang’s energy could be felt, fighting in constant perpetual motion not unlike Ricky Hatton, sans the excessive clinching.

The final two rounds were fought on even terms, but Yang was already up 9-1 at that point.

Team China is now 3-2 in Olympic competition, as Yang joins welterweight Hanati Silamu and light heavyweight Zhang Xiaoping in the round of 16.

It’s the end of the road for Conceição, who qualified for the Games by beating Roberto Navarro of the Dominican Republic this past April. Navarro earned a spot on Team D.R. since by advancing to the finals after losing his first qualifier to Luis Enrique Porozo of Ecuador.

Navarro now joins Conceição on the sidelines after once again falling short to Porozo in the opening round of the Games. The Ecuador featherweight won by tiebreaker after the two fought to a 3-3 tie.

The loss is a bitter pill to swallow for Navarro, who was up 3-0 early, but put it on auto-pilot from midway through round two until the end of the bout. Porozo turned bully against the Dominican southpaw, charging forward in search of scoring opportunities. None would come until late in the third round, yet remarkably scored three points in the final 17 seconds of the round. Two came by foul, when Navarro was nabbed for holding and hitting behind the head.

The final round was marred by clinching and fouling, with neither fighter scoring a point. The bout came down to more meaningful blows landed, which was ruled in favor of Porzo, who will now face Yang in the Sweet 16.

Uzbekistan’s Bahodirjon Sooltonov earned Olympic bronze in the 2004 Games as a bantamweight. His hopes remain alive for a second medal after getting past Anthresh Lalit Lakra of India in their opening round featherweight contest by a 9-5 margin.

It was a surprisingly competitive contest, with the more polished Sooltonov having a difficult time pinning down the mobile Lakra. The score was even at 5-5 with less than a minute remaining in the third until Sooltonov surged ahead, scoring the bout’s final four points to advance to the next round.

Sooltonov figures to face a much stiffer challenge in the round of 16, as Ukrainian featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko advanced with a 14-7 win over Albert Selimov of Russia in a rematch to their World Championship finals showdown last October.

Selimov captured the gold at last year’s aforementioned tournament with a 16-11 win, and appeared well on his way to repeating in this matchup of southpaw featherweights. Lomachenko was a little too hyper early, allowing Selimov to stay in the pocket and repeatedly score with straight left hands and build up a 5-2 lead.

Lomachenko eventually settled down, however, scoring five straight points for a seven-point second round to pull ahead, at which point he never looked back. The Ukrainian tacked on six points in a row to start the third, sprinting out to a 13-6 lead before using every inch of the ring for the remainder of the fight to advance to the next round.

American lightweight Sadam Ali was scheduled to perform in the evening portion (local Beijing time) of the competition, but the early action saw the first truly questionable verdict of the competition, with Asylbek Talasbaev of Kyrgyzstan taking a disputed decision over Brazilian lightweight Everton Lopes.

A huge criticism of Olympic scoring is that favors “touchers,” who punch just enough for their gloves to land clean, though with little to no conviction. Such was evident in the first lightweight bout of the afternoon. Lopes was the aggressor throughout, scoring two knockdowns (though neither were called), yet was given little to no credit by the judges.

The Brazilian overcame a 6-2 deficit, outscoring Talasbaev 3-1 in the third and emptying the vault in the final round, only for it to be scored 2-2, leaving Lopes with a 9-7 points loss.

Anthony Little became the first member of the 2008 Australian boxing squad to advance to the round of 16, winning 14-2 against Julius Indongo of Nambia in a battle of southpaws. The celebration may be short-lived; Little has ahead of him perhaps the toughest assignment of any remaining Olympian

Awaiting Little in the round of 16 is 2004 Olympic gold medalist Aleksei Tischenko of Russia, who had his way with Saifeddine Nejmaoui of Tunisia, cruising to a 10-2 victory.

Domenico Valentino made it to the quarterfinals of the 2004 Olympics and was favored to medal in this year’s competition. His first round bout helped lend validity to the claim, having his way with 2000 Olympic bronze medalist and three-time Olympian Tahar Tamsamani of Morocco with a 15-4 victory.

However, his chances of scoring a medal reduced greatly after random tournament seeding has him facing Cuban lightweight Yordenis Ugas in the round of 16.

Ugas delivered one of the more dominating performances in this year’s games to date, allowing Algerian Hamza Kramou to creep within a 7-3 margin before rattling off 14 straight points over the final 2 ½ rounds en route to a 21-3 whitewash in his first Olympic bout.

For complete Boxingscene.com Olympic boxing coverage, check out the following links:

Day One Competition: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15327  

Day Two Competition (Part One): https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15336

Day Two Competition (Part Two): https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15339

Round One Report Cards (by Cliff Rold):

Demetrius Andrade: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15348

Shawn Estrada: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15332

Javier Molina: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15341 

Raynell Williams: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15349

Complete Scoreboard Thru 8/11: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15337

Jake Donovan is a voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Comments/questions can be submitted to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .