SOUTHAMPTON is standing on the brink of a unique Olympic boxing double.

There have only ever been four champions from this country in the history of the Junior Games, but two years after the success of Lordswood's Tony Hill, Golden Ring teammate Danny Kent is preparing for a tilt at gold this month in Texas.

It is a medal that has previously been won by all-time boxing greats such as Mike Tyson and Oscar De La Hoya.

Light-heavyweight Kent secured his place in the England team this week after becoming Four Nations British champion with a points win over five-times Irish champion James Monaghan.

That followed the 16-year-old's success earlier this year in the English schoolboy championships.

Kent has really come of age this year after, amazingly, bulking up by around three stone in the past year.

Golden Ring head-coach Stuart Gill explained: "He has matured greatly in the past year. The added weight has gone on in height, not fat and he is really performing at the moment.

"His main strength is his jab, but he is also very fit at the moment. Technically he is very good and he is very tough."

Kent travels from his home in Poole during the week to train at Golden Ring and is the Freemantle-based club's 12th national champion since 1999.

Olympic junior champion Hill, meanwhile, this week added his second junior ABA middleweight crown to the three national schoolboy titles he has previously won when his opponent in the final pulled out with a late injury.

The 18-year-old, whose age only just ruled him out of the running for a place in the senior Olympic team in Athens, now boxes for the Four Nations British title later in the month.

And Golden Ring have a chance at a hat-trick of British champions this year with young Iain Weaver also boxing in the Four Nations finals this weekend.

"The lads have done brilliant and are really putting Southampton on the boxing map," added Gill.

Southampton ABC's Richard Smart was also boxing in the junior ABA national championships this week, but his outstanding run came to an end when he was beaten in a tough final.

Smart's Southampton club will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of its founding by holding a Diamond Jubilee reunion dance evening next Friday, June 11, at the First Southampton Bus Company's Social Club in Portswood, Southampton.

It is hoped that many former boxers and friends of the club will attend the event.

Anyone interested can get in touch with the organisers, by visiting the club's training quarters at the Pax Hall, North East Road, Sholing on any weekday evening.

Alternatively, they can contact the Tew Brothers' offices on 023 8044 3773 or by calling Don Robertson on 023 8057 1858.