Terrell Gausha, the middleweight representative for the United States in the Olympics, has gotten past his opening round match with relative ease.

Gausha, who was not considered to be a prime Olympic contender just a couple of years ago, scored a knockout (an RSC – “Referee Stops Contest” in amateur boxing jargon) over Andranik Hakobyan of Armenia and will now move on to the next round of competition.

The end came in the third round.

For Gausha, anything beyond an Olympic berth would, on the surface, appear to be a bonus. After all, he came in at the USA Championship tournament as an unseeded at-large entry this year, and simply swept through the field before beating Jesse Hart, the Olympic Trials champ and son of former pro middleweight standout Eugene “Cyclone” Hart, on a tie-breaker after their bout had been scored even.

Later, in the American Boxing Olympic Qualification Tournament , held in May, he beat Junior Castillo by an 8-2 decision in the finals. Of course, just by getting into the semifinals, he had secured an Olympic berth.

The bout actually happened to be very close through the first two rounds. In fact, Hakobyan led in the scoring by an 8-7 margin after the first two stanzas. Gausha was bothered with his height, and found himself stumbling to the canvas at one point, but then took to the offensive, landing an overhand right that put Hakobyan down. When he got up he was met with a couple of stiff jabs that put him down again. He could not get up from the count, and even though the bell rung he was not saved by it.

Gausha called the bout a “confidence booster.”

In other action for Saturday, Adem Klicci of Turkey scored a 14-7 win over Turkmenistan’s Nursahat Pazziyev; Abdelmalek Rahou of Algeria was a narrow victor over Jess Ross of Australia (13-11); Aleksander Drenovak of Serbia won 13-12 over Mario Delgado Suarez of Ecuador. Also, Abbos Atoev of Uzbekistan beat Badr-Eddine Haddiousi of Morocco by an 11-9 count and Vijender of India bested Danabek Suzhanov of Kazakhstan 14-10.

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