Olympic Games /Olympic Countdown - Boxing: Cuba's class act

CUBA, returning to Olympic competition for the first time since their boycotts of 1984 and 1988, loom as the nation most likely to succeed in Barcelona.

The country's leading contender for a medal is the heavyweight, Felix Savon, the heir to Teofilo Stevenson, who brought the Olympic heavyweight title home to Havana in 1972, 1976 and 1980. Savon, 24, remains unbeaten for four years while matching Stevenson's haul of three world amateur titles.

Savon was one of 11 Cubans to win gold medals at the Pan American Games against a country which usually provides them with some of their toughest competition, the United States.

The US team are unlikely to measure up to the squad of 1976, which included Sugar Ray Leonard and the Spinks brothers, Leon and Michael. The US won three gold medals in Seoul. This time their hopes rest with the light-flyweight, Eric Griffin.

The Unified Team have two world amateur silver medallists in their squad for Barcelona, the middleweight, Alexander Lebziak, and the lightweight, Artur Grigorian.

It is 24 years since Britain won an Olympic boxing gold medal, Chris Finnegan having won the middleweight title in Mexico City. Britain's best hope in Barcelona is a 21-year-old who was born in Guyana. Adrian Dodson, who now lives in London, has not been beaten since the quarter-finals of the Games in Seoul four years ago, when he boxed for Guyana.

Dodson, whose preferred weight is light-middle, will compete at welterweight. Robin Reid, one of three British winners at the Canada Cup in Ottawa in May, competes at light-middle.

The Olympic competition will use a computerised scoring system. The judges are linked to a computer which records the number of punches landed by each boxer over three rounds and the fighter scoring the most blows is declared the winner. A punch is counted only if three of the five judges register it.

BRITISH TEAM: R Williams (light-flyweight), P Ingle (fly), B Carr (feather), A Vaughan (light), P Richardson (light-welter), A Dodson (welter), R Reid (light-middle), M Edwards (middle), P Lawson (heavy).