BOXING
History
At the moment boxing is for men only but there are attempts for women to be included at London in 2012.
The first two Olympic boxing tournaments do not really count.
In St Louis in1904 all the boxers were American and in London four years later, they were all British.
Only in 1920 did Olympic boxing become truly international and since then it has been an unmissable component of the Games.
The first notable winner was Eddie Eagan, who took the lightheavyweight title in 1920 and, 12 years later, was part of the four who won the bobsleigh at the winter Games.
Eagan is still the only person to win summer and winter gold medals, but he has long been surpassed in boxing lore by the likes of Muhammad Ali, who, as Cassius Clay, won the 1960 light-heavyweight gold, George Foreman, who claimed the same title in 1968,Oscar de la Hoya, the lightweight winner in 1992, and Lennox Lewis, the 1988 super-heavyweight champion, who was then competing for Canada before switching his allegiance to Britain.
Britain has had its share of home-grown talent, though.
Dick McTaggart and Terry Spinks won the lightweight and flyweight titles in 1956, Terry Chris Finnegan the middleweight gold in 1968, Audley Harrison the super-heavyweight in 2000 and James DeGale the middleweight in 2008.
Technical
In each contest, there are four rounds of two minutes each.
The fighters wear headguards, but that does not mean you cannot hit them there.
In fact, you can hit any part of the front of the torso and the head.
You score only if the blow is made with the fist and there is a white area on the gloves to show what is deemed to be the fist.
Five judges and the referee score and if one boxer is 20 points ahead, the contest will be stopped.
That rule is going to be dropped for London 2012, though.
If you knock your opponent down, but he survives the count, you do not get an extra point.
Major players
Cuba punches well above its tiny weight when it comes to Olympic boxing. They have won an incredible 63 medals, 32 of them gold, leaving them only second in the all-time medal list to their bitter rivals the United States.
Their most famous winner was undoutbedly Teofilo Stevenson, a heavyweight who claimed the gold medal in three consecutive Games between 1972 and 1980 and who many experts are convinced would have won the world heavyweight title if he had been allowed to turn professional.
Bluffer's guide
When it first arrived in the Ancient Olympic Games, the tools of the trade were long strips of leather wrapped around boxers' fists. The fight continued until one man or the other went down or conceded.
Useless information
Boxing was not held at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm because, under Swedish law, it was illegal.
Britain's athletes may be golden, shame about the finances
