Pitt and Fletcher comprehensively take out Gold

It was a golden afternoon in the boxing ring for Australia, with heavyweight Brad Pitt and middleweight Jarrod Fletcher comprehensively taking out their respective gold medal bouts at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

More famous for his Hollywood name than his boxing skills prior to this week, 24-year-old Pitt completed a wonderful tournament by thumping hard-hitting Indian Harpreet Singh 25-10 in the 91kg final.

“It doesn’t get much better than this. This is my home crowd, they erupted each time I got a point, so this is awesome,” Pitt said.

This was preceded by 22-year-old Fletcher’s calculated 34-18 triumph over Canadian southpaw Adonis Stevenson in the 75kg division, after which the sell-out crowd stood in appreciation to salute their hero.

“The crowd support was the best I’ve ever fought in front of. He is a big strong boy so I knew I had to be on my game. I had to go out and fight the whole four rounds.

And Fletcher did exactly that, coming out smoking in the opening two minutes and taking an early 8-5 lead. Using his quick feet and high-glove defence to avoid Stevenson’s dangerous left hook, Fletcher moved rapidly to a 16-5 advantage, forcing the Canadian to endure a standing 10 count.

However, just before the end of the second round, Stevenson finally connected with his trademark punch and momentarily floored the Australian, who recovered with the aid of the bell.

From there though, the dancing Fletcher was untroubled, picking off the Canadian with ease and claiming victory in front of an ecstatic audience that included Prince Edward.

A former housepainter who quit to focus on Melbourne, Pitt came into the Games as an underdog, but following a shock 16-12 triumph in the opening bout against England’s Danny Price, progressed comfortably to today’s gold medal bout.

Facing the potentially devastating Singh- who took just 35 seconds to knock out Emmanuel Anderson of Barbados in the semi-finals- was always going to be a delicate task and the Australian started tentatively, very watchful of the Indian’s straight left.

A lot of shadow boxing ensued, until Pitt crept forward and used his long reach to seize a handy 6-1 lead after the first round. The second followed a similar pattern with Pitt carefully keeping his distance, before employing a late combination of punches to jump to an 11-3 buffer at the half-way point.

Earmarked by former heavyweight champ George Foreman as a future star in the world of professional boxing, Pitt broke away decisively to an 18-5 margin after the third round, moving too quickly around the ring for his Indian opponent, while still managing to score with tremendous skill and poise.

Requiring a knockout to capture the title, Singh came out attacking in the final two minutes, but Pitt kept out of trouble and at the final bell, celebrated with arms aloft in triumph.

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