Bradley Saunders in shock exit by Ian McNeilly Aug 14th 2008

Bradley Saunders went out of the Olympic Games today, losing his 64 kg round of 16 match to France's Alexis Vastine by a score of 11-7. Saunders had been expected to progress, especially as he had beaten Vastine 30-13 in the quarter-finals of the World Championships in Chicago last year. Saunders himself said he had been guilty of taking Vastine a little too lightly. "I was looking too far ahead in the tournament, thinking who I had next. I hadn't studied him but he had obviously studied me." There was quite a lot of grappling and wrestling in the opener in which Vastine went 2-0 up before Saunders scored with two left hooks to even things up. Vastine nicked one at the close to go 3-2 ahead. A right cross from Saunders early in the second round squared matters but Vastine rattled up a few points quickly to move 6-3 ahead and Saunders' game plan, if indeed he had one, seemed to have already gone out of the window as he swung wildly at his opponent. The session finished 7-3. The third continued in a similar pattern with Saunders trying to hunt down Vastine who was content to throw the odd shot as a counter - it worked for him as Saunders drew a blank in this session. Vastine was 10-3 to the good. The Stockton-on-Tees man gave it a good go in the last and an unlikely comeback seemed possible when he quickly scored twice to make it 5-10 but it was too big a task, especially as the judges seem very reluctant to register perfectly legitimate body shots as points. It finished 11-7. "I did the wrong thing at the wrong time," confessed the likeable Saunders. "One of those things. I let my heart rule my head and just wanted to have a fight." A disappointing day for Team GB with two big medal prospects going out and Jeffries scraping through unimpressively.

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