BOXING: In ancient Greece they might have called him after Herakles, the fearless young fighter who had strangled snakes in his cradle, but for now we'll just call him an Olympic contender. Andy Lee that is, the Limerick middleweight and Ireland's only boxing representative in Athens.

When, on Saturday evening, Lee first entered the Peristeri boxing hall west of the city, there was the danger the pressure and expectations on the 20-year-old's shoulders would prove too much to bear. The Irish support and media presence was more than noticeable. Yet when he left around 9 p.m. he'd replaced it with another danger: the prospect of being called a potential medallist.

By convincingly beating the Mexican, Alfredo Angulo Lopez, in his first-round bout, Lee has clearly proven both his ability and his ambitions. He'll be hard to match and harder still to beat, and knows he's good enough to win a medal.

Next Saturday evening he'll take on Hassan Ndam Njikam of Cameroon, also just 20 but with a little less hype surrounding his name.

If Lee comes through that contest, he'll be fighting for the bronze medal, most likely against Russia's Gaidarbek Gaidarbekov. Though the Russian looked impressive when winning the European title earlier this year, he's certainly not unbeatable. And Lee has what is needed to take him: the intelligence, the punch combinations, and, most of all, the strength.

A half-hour after his fight with the Mexican, a dynamic four-round contest which Lee won easily 38-23, there are no visible signs of either wear or tear. His face is clean without a bead of sweat, the ripe banana in his hand the only sign of the pending recovery. It was like he'd enjoyed the whole thing.

"Well, I wasn't nervous," he says, "more anxious to get in there and get it started. And it's nice to be out the first day. But the Mexican was strong. They were four tough rounds, and he came forward a lot. But I picked him off well, and counter-punched a lot. He cut the ring off well, but I suppose he did suit me alright."

And he smiles at the suggestion he didn't even hurt out there: "Well, maybe I didn't show it. But no, he was strong. He caught me with a couple of nice body shots, and a couple of good right hands to the chin. But I took them well, gave as good as I got."

After winning the first two-minute round 11-4, and inflicting a small cut above the Mexican's left eye, Lee was perfectly poised for the victory. But Lopez did rally in the second, which ended 22-13.

"Well, he had to do something," explains Lee. "He knew he was behind, so I knew he was going to come out and throw more shots. He was here to win it just like I was."

And you answered with some great combinations in the third?

"I put a few together alright, twos and threes. You know yourself. But I was never worried, as long as I won the fight. As soon as I saw him come out for the second round I was confident I would win. It was my fight to lose after that. I just stuck to the plan, punch and move, and keep changing my action."

Clearly Lee is now hurting his opponents. The Cameroon fighter only sneaked past the Pan-American champion Juan Jose Ubaldo on a split decision, and Lee has nothing to fear. Last year he weighed under 73 kg, and by slowly reaching the 75 kg middleweight he's lost none of his power.

There are a handful of contenders for the Olympic medals, with the world champion Genadiy Golovkin of Kazakhstan getting a bye into the second round, as did the Romanian hope Marian Simion. But they are in the top half of the draw, and Lee won't need to worry about them for the time being.

"Well he's very confident," says his coach, Billy Walsh, "and an extremely talented young lad. So he's well ahead of his time. I mean that was a huge occasion for him. At 20, with the weight of Irish boxing on his shoulders. That's a lot to ask. I know from being here myself at 25 how you can make a bags of it.

"But everything I shouted at him he did, he threw. He reacted straight away. You can nearly see him thinking in the ring, and where his next shot will come from. He's a very intelligent fighter."