Rio 2016: Ruthless Joshua Buatsi overcomes Abdelhafid Benchabla for light-heavyweight semi-final spot

'I came to win gold, I knew I had to beat the top men, so that is what I'm doing,' said Buatsi in the aftermath

Joshua Buatsi (Getty)

In fight number 200 Joshua Buatsi was ruthless, relentless and utterly compelling against Abdelhafid Benchabla, winning a wide, wide decision to secure a place in the light-heavyweight semi-final and a bronze medal.

Buatsi has now won three times here, beaten two seeded men and hurting every single one of his opponents; Buatsi stopped his first two opponents and the Algerian idol Benchabla survived, but was given two standing counts, took a fearsome beating, which is rare in the Olympic ring, and looked stunned at the final bell.

"I came to win gold, I knew I had to beat the top men, so that is what I'm doing," said Buatsi, a member of the South Norwood and Victory club in south London. "The spirit in the team is brilliant, I just can't wait to get back in the there. This has been amazing."

At light-welterweight Pat McCormack lost all three rounds against the Cuban Yasnier Toledo by the cruellest and tiniest of margins, a punch or two in what was a masterclass of evasive boxing by Toledo. The southpaw Cuban, a bronze winner in London, never took a single risk, never left a single opening and McCormack will learn from the loss.

It is never easy against a Cuban, there is never an average Cuban boxer in any tournament and, having boycotted two Olympics, the tiny fighting citadel in the Caribbean has still managed to win 34 gold medals since winning the first gold in Munich in 1972; the Cuban boxing team arrived in Germany at the Olympics all those years ago in their now familiar paranoid huddle and altered forever the shape of amateur boxing. They are not here or at any Olympics to make friends, only to win golds.

There was delightful redemption for middleweight Savannah Marshall in her preliminary round fight against Swedish pioneer Anna Laurel Nash, who won the inaugural amateur World title at middleweight back in 2001. Marshall was just too busy for Laurel-Nash, who is 36, and she fights again on Wednesday in the quarter final. The women still wear headgurads, which is odd considering the men removed the invasive piece of apparatus because extensive research revealed that wearing the fighting helmets actually increased the risk of concussions.

"It was not my best performance, I thought it was a close fight but there is more to come," promised Marshall. "I want an Olympic medal for my collection and there is nobody here that I fear." As she was speaking I got a sense of the confidence and belief she so badly lacked in London and until then had been hidden in Rio.

At the 2012 Olympics Marshall was the number one seed, the reigning world champion but she failed to perform and was beaten in her opening contest. It was a terrible night and she fell from medal hope to invisible member of the triumphant team after four lame rounds; the men in charge of getting the British boxers ready have spent a lot of time getting Marshall's head in the right place and it looks like it has worked.

Late on Saturday night Joe Joyce, a model, fine arts graduate and diving instructor from south London, biffed and bashed a hapless soldier from the Cape Verde Islands in a rare Olympic boxing mismatch. The super-heavyweight fight ended on the first bell with Davilson Dos Santos Morais on his back with his legs resting on the bottom rope after a clubbing right to his temple put a sudden end to his brief life as an Olympian. Joyce fights a rugged Uzbek on Tuesday, win that and he has a medal, lose that and he will be disappointed.

Tuesday here in the Olympic boxing venue, an isolated anonymous building in the shadow of yet another distinctive Rio hill, has become the most important day so far for the British squad with defending champion Nicola Adams finally fighting, Joyce just a punch or two away from a medal and the destructive Buatsi. It started with 12 British believers getting on the plane for Rio, fighting their way from the very first bout on the very first day and now at the end of 201 fights five remain, five are still fighting for the highest possible step on the podium. Buatsi has given the team the first of their three required medals and he has given the team a tremendous boost.

Meanwhile, on Monday the lightweight gold medal winner in London Katie Taylor, so dominant for so long, starts her campaign to retain her Olympic title. The last male member of the British team to fight also begins his campaign when the gloriously named Muhammad Ali from the Bury club starts his flyweight preliminary on day ten of a relentless and so far vintage boxing tournament.