ANCIENT ORIGINS

BOXING LIVES TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY

Boxing's place in the Olympic Games was assured for four more years after much debate post-Atlanta about controversial judging and scoring, poor refereeing and not least of all the risk of brain damage through punches to the head. Olympic boxers have long worn protective head gear, though here too some experts have offered up evidence that, even with head gear, the sport is dangerous. It is an argument that dates back to the birth of the modern Games - though the ancient fathers of Olympic sport appeared to care less for rules, regulations and safety.

In the ancient Olympics, boxers wore no more than leather straps on their hands for protection and the winner was the man left standing, head held high, either because his rival was on the floor or had conceded. That approach was civilised compared with the preferences of the Romans, who liked their fighters to wear gladiatorial spikes on their gloves, or have the gloves weighed down by strips of lead; such fights often ended when one of the fighters dropped dead.

The earliest of the great names in boxing dates back to the ancient Games at Olympia and managed something that few who followed him could ever do. Melagomas, from Caria in Asia Minor, would force his rivals to admit defeat without a blow being struck. Enemies would shy from the fight at the words: "To hit, to wound and be wounded is not bravery." The same tactic might prove a little difficult these days, though Melagomas is credited with being the father of the psychological weapon of staring out your opponent.

The first recorded fist fights as sport date back 5,000 years to Sumer, Mesopotamia. By the time boxing was introduced to the Games, in 688 BC, headgear was worn and leather strips protected fists. The history of boxing in the ancient Games is well documented but with the fall of the Roman Empire, records vanished until the 17th century, when bare-knuckle fights for prize money became common in England.

In the mid 19th century, the 8th Marquess of Queensberry introduced rules, since known as the Queensberry rules, which set in place the framework for the modern sport. Out went bare knuckles, hugging and hitting a man while he was down. On came gloves, a roped-off ring, rest intervals and the three-minute round, which will be reduced to two minutes in Sydney.