Cuba's Felix Savon

Savon heads a list of 12 fighters who will compete for Cuba, and all are capable of winning a medal. The Cubans have won 42 titles at World Championships, the most success of any team. The United States leads in gold medals with 46 champions in the 19 modern Olympic Games, and after a few lean years, with the low point coming at the 1997 World Championships when the US failed to reach the quarter-finals for the first time, the team appears to be punching at around its proper weight again.

They arrived in Sydney with three world champions and the team title from the controversial 1999 Championships, which were hit by a late Cuban walk-out in protest at the judging. For the first time, the US team has the amateur world heavyweight champion on what is being seen as its most promising squad for at least a decade. It is unlikely to come close to the team that won nine golds at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, when the then Soviet Union and Cuba stayed away, but they certainly have the talent to do better than at the last two Games.

Light-flyweight Brian Viloria, the first Hawaiian citizen to fight at the Olympic Games since 1956, is a good prospect after beating Cuban Olympic champion Maikro Romero for the world title last year. The other champions are featherweight Ricardo Juarez, nicknamed "Cadillac" because he is neither fast nor slow but just smooth and steady, and former convict-turned-heavyweight Michael Bennett.

Boxing gave Bennett a second chance in life and, to his credit, ever since he came out of jail in July 1998 for armed robbery, he has made the most of it. Last year he became the first US athlete to win the world amateur heavyweight title - helped by a walkover when Savon was unable to contest the final due to the Cuban walkout - and gold in Sydney is the next target. As he heads for a likely clash with two-time Olympic champion Savon, Bennett continues a tradition in US heavyweight history of former prison inmates finding rehabilitation through their fists.

Henry Tillmann, who also learned his craft while serving time in jail for armed robbery, won gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Games after beating future professional world champion Mike Tyson for a place on the team. Danell Nicholson came to the 1992 Barcelona Games after serving three-and-a-half years for armed robbery but he failed to take home a medal after being beaten by Savon. Four years later, in Atlanta, heavyweight Nate Jones, who had been previously imprisoned for car theft, took a bronze.

Nate Jones (l)

Middleweight Jeff Lacy is the hardest puncher on the team, measuring 1136 pounds per square inch with a hook and 1000 with the right hand on the computerised heavy bag. The US team won just one gold at Atlanta - light-middleweight David Reid's last-round knockout of Alfredo Duvergel when the Cuban was way ahead on points.

American bantamweight Clarence Vinson Vinson - dubbed "The Untouchable", a nickname earned by his ability to duck and dive in the ring and avoid big blows - is one of the most colourful characters in the competition. Many boxers come from troubled backgrounds, brutal upbringings and violence-scarred streets and Vinson, the three-times US champion who intends to turn professional after the Olympics, has seen more anguish than most. He lost his older brother and a cousin to muggers' bullets and, in the words of a US team profile, has in his 22 years seen "more people slain and more people hurt than you care to imagine." The Bulgarian, Dmitry Usagin, is another great character and should provide great entertainment with his brutal fighting style.

Super-heavyweight Audley Harrison, meanwhile, is Britain's big hope for a boxing Gold. Not since Chris Finnegan won the middleweight title at the 1968 Games has Britain celebrated Olympic boxing gold, but Harrison is convinced he can end this drought. The 28-year-old Londoner, Commonwealth champion in 1998, believes it his destiny to take the gold medal in Sydney, despite managing only fifth in the world championships and qualifying for Sydney at the third attempt. He will turn pro after the Games.

Light-heavyweight Courtney Fry is Britain's only other fighter in the Games and a London club mate of Harrison. They are both good fighters, clean long punchers, and if they are at their bes,t they can do really well. The British have flown two sparring partners from home to work with the boxers and have also invited two local pros to keep them busy. Also on site to help with advice is former British heavyweight champion Joe Bugner, who retired to Australia before launching a lucrative comeback as "Aussie Joe".

On the other side of the ropes, boxing judges during the Olympics will be watched by "spy cameras" to make sure they do not cheat. The International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) has decided to suspend cameras above the four sides of the ring to keep an eye on the five judges. Any hint of controversy and the bout footage will be reviewed. Images of the fighters will also be able to be linked to computerised scoring read-outs. If a judge has pressed a (scoring) button, AIBA officials will be able to see what the position of the two boxers is.

The existing computerised scoring system was brought in after the fiasco of Seoul in 1988 when American Roy Jones was widely held to have been robbed of gold by judges voting for his outclassed South Korean opponent. No point is awarded for a hit unless three of the five judges press a scoring button for one particular boxer within a second of each other. The system, however, has proved a rich source of controversy in the past. At the Atlanta Games in 1996, a Tunisian referee was sent home after he was deemed to have made four mistakes on his first day. And at the last world championships in Houston in 1999, there was uproar when the Cuban team walked out in protest at the judging after Juan Hernandez suffered a shock defeat.

And finally, the boxers are paired off at random for the Games, without regard to ranking. They fight in a single-elimination tournament, but, unlike most Olympic events, both losing semi-finalists receive bronze medals. Each bout will consist of four two-minute rounds, with one-minute intervals. The Olympic format in 1996 at Atlanta still consisted of three three-minute rounds.