Zou Shiming won China's first-ever Olympic boxing title at light-flyweight before Badar-Uugan Enkhbat repeated the feat for Mongolia at bantamweight.

Zhang Xiaoping then added a second gold for the Chinese at light-heavyweight to ensure they topped the boxing medals table, ahead of traditional powers Cuba, the USA and Russia.

Alexey Tishchenko's gold at lightweight meant Russia was the only other nation to win more than one title while Cuba incredibly failed to win a single gold medal and the US had a miserly one bronze medal to show for its efforts.

Zou, who began his sporting career in Wushu, sent the home fans into ecstasy in the first final of the day as Mongolia's Serdamba Purevdorj lasted just over one round before retiring with a shoulder injury.

The Chinese boxer revealed he had adopted an interesting diet to prepare for these Games.

''While I've been in Beijing what I've been eating most is pizza and hamburgers,'' Zou said.

''I love Western food so I've had a lot of it. Chinese food tends to be so greasy so it's better for me to eat Western food.''

Zhang's victory was highly contentious as he beat Ireland's Kenny Egan 11-7 in the final.

Zhang seemed to score several points off punches that didn't land cleanly, meaning Egan was always playing catch-up and forced into taking risks in the final round that allowed Zhang to counter effectively to open up the four-point gap by the end.

''I shot two shots and they were in his favour, so he was getting points from my work,'' Egan complained.

''Deep down in my heart of hearts I felt I won the fight but that's boxing.''

China had a third finalist in Zhang Zhilei at super-heavyweight but he was never in the fight against world champion Roberto Cammarelle of Italy. Cammarelle dominated from the opening bell and Zhang took several crunching blows to the jaw.

But he demonstrated admirable resistance until the fourth round when a short left hook dropped him to his knees, after which the referee mercifully put an end to his punishment. After the controversies surrounding the scoring in Beijing Cammarelle claimed that was something that never worried him.

Bakhyt Sarsekbayev of Kazakhstan was a dominant winner at welterweight, beating Cuba's Carlos Banteaux 18-9.