One of the favourites to medal at the London Olympics for Team GB has been handed a tough opening contest after super-heavyweight Anthony Joshua was drawn against Erislandy Savon of Cuba.

Savon is officially ranked one place below Joshua, but, he is one of the fighters that the Brit would have been hoping to avoid in the early stages of the knockout tournament which begins on Wednesday August 1.

The 21-year-old is the nephew of Cuban legend Felix Savon and has even more expectation on his shoulders to continue the legacy of heavyweight boxing after the death of one of the all times greats in Teofilo Stevenson.

Anthony Johua
Anthony Joshua is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Olympic gold medallist Audley Harrison [Reuters]

However, should Joshua make it through the first round he will be confident of successfully navigating his way through to the semi-finals as he would face either Johan Lindie of Australia or Zhilei Zhang of China.

Neither fighter would hold to much fear for the Watford fighter whose main rivals are Magomedrasul Medzhidov of Azerbaijan and Roberto Cammarelle of Italy who is the defending Olympic champion.

Elsewhere in the draw, middleweight contender Anthony Ogogo will face a tough route if he is to medal with a potential round of 16 clash against much fancied Ukrainian Levgen Khytrov.

Andrew Selby was handed a bye in to the second round as he was one of the topped rank boxers in the flyweight division, while team captain Tom Stalker and Luke Campbell will also not be in action until the last 16.

Josh Taylor meets Brazil's Robson Conceicao in the first round while Freddie Evans comes up against Algeria's Ilyas Abbadi.

In the women's draw there was good news for reigning world champion Savannah Marshall who received a bye into the quarter-finals and will now just need to win two fights in order to be assured of a medal.

Nicola Adams also received a bye and will face either Siona Fernandes of Australia or Stoyka Petrova of Bulgaria, while Natasha Jonas could well meet number one ranked Irish fighter Katie Taylor in the quarter-finals, should she make it past American Quanitta Underwood.

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