August 21, 2008	Thursday	Sha'aban 18, 1429

BEIJING, Aug 20: Britain and Ireland continued their impressive showing in the Olympic boxing competition in Beijing on Wednesday as James DeGale and Darren Sutherland qualified for the middleweight semi-finals.

The pair each became the third fighter from his country to guarantee a medal and they will square up for a place in the final on Friday.

Britain’s DeGale unpset Kazakhstan’s Bakhtiyar Artayev, the Olympic champion in Athens at welterweight who had beaten reigning double world champion Matvey Korobov of Russia in the previous round.

But southpaw DeGale caused the Kazakh problems with his left hand and comfortably won 8-3, winning every round.

Sutherland also caused a shock as he beat the silver medallist from last year’s World Championships in Chicago, Alfonso Blanco of Venezuela by a massive 11-1 margin.

But while Britain and Ireland will be pleased with their showing, their three medals don’t compare to the eight guaranteed by the Cuban team.

Emilio Correa won the fight of the night at middleweight, pipping Uzbekistan’s Elshod Rasulov in the last round for a 9-7 win after they had been neck-and-neck throughout.

Team-mate Andris Laffita had already won at flyweight as eight of the 10 boxers the Cuban team brought here qualified for the last four.

Correa will come up against Vijender Kumar, India’s last surviving boxer, in the last eight following a 9-4 victory over Ecuador’s Carlos Gongora while Laffita will face Russia’s Georgy Balakshin on Friday.

Somjit Jongjohor guaranteed a second boxing medal for Thailand when he qualified for the flyweight semi-finals.

The 33-year-old world champion from 2003 proved too classy for Anvar Yunusov of Tajikistan winning their quarter-final clash 8-1.

Somjit will face Vincenzo Picardi in the semi-finals, a repeat of their last four meeting at last year’s World Championships, after the Italian scraped past Walid Cherif of Tunisia 7-5.

Somjit sounded a word of caution about Picardi before also demonstrating his huge self-belief, and his love of cuisine.

“I have beaten the Italian boxer before in the semi-finals in Chicago last year but I can’t be negligent,” he said.

“I’m 80 percent confident that I will win the next round. This opponent is like an hors d’oeuvre. My next opponent will be like a dipping sauce.”

Cherif had beaten 2005 world champion Lee Ok Song of South Korea in the previous round with the Korean having knocked out current world champion Rau’shee Warren of USA before that.The pair started the final round level at 5-5 but Picardi used his experience to squeeze through and claim a shot at getting revenge on Somjit for his Chicago loss.

As a world silver medallist and former world champion, Somjit is the class fighter left in the field but Laffita looked impressive in beating McWilliams Arroyo of Puerto Rico 11-2.

Balashkan was made to work all the way by Jitender Kumar of India but won 15-11 in a scrappy bout.—AFP