The Cuban machine misfires

The mighty Cuban boxing machine did not have things all their own way on the first finals night in Atlanta, with two of their army of expected gold medallists being beaten.

For the second Olympics running, Juan Hernandez entered the final as world welterweight champion and hot favourite, and for the second time he left it defeated and with only a silver medal. In Barcelona Ireland's Michael Carruth caused the upset, this time it was the Russian Oleg Saitov, who fought a precise bout to win 14-9 on points.

Yet again the controversial points scoring system fooled the crowd, who booed roundly when the result was announced. But in fact Saitov, though on the retreat for much of the time, had landed the cleaner punches, which were registered on the computer. Hernandez was the second Cuban to lose last night, following the bantamweight Arnaldo Mesa, whose 14-7 defeat by Istvan Kovacs gave Hungary their first boxing gold for 24 years.

Unlike Hernandez's fight, this caused no controversy as Mesa was outclassed from beginning to end. He was unable to score a point in the first round, trailed 11-4 after the second and had to endure the humiliation of watching Kovacs show off before the end by raising his arms before the end.

However, the Cubans were never going to leave the ring empty handed and Ariel Hernandez, widely regarded as the best amateur pound for pound in the world, restored the natural order by retaining his middleweight title against Turkey's Malik Beyleroglu 11-3. It was a low-key affair, though, with Hernandez doing the bare minimum to keep the Turk under control. He managed to such an extent that Beyleroglu, Turkey's first ever boxing finalist, had gained just one point after the first two rounds.

Their second gold was even more predictable, as the five-time world heavyweight champion, Felix Savon, marched past Canada's David Defiagbon by a dismissive 20-2.

Savon, who entered the ring to the loud accompaniment of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer", took his time to get going, but clubbed the Canadian to the ground in the second round, after which the traffic was strictly one- way as Savon retained his title with ease.

There was one moment of history, when Hocine Soltani won the lightweight title to become Algeria's first boxing gold medallist. He needed a tie- break to do it after his tedious bout with Bulgaria's Tontcho Tontchev had ended in a low-scoring 3-3. The tiebreak, in which the judges' cumulative individual scores are totted up, went firmly to Soltani.