Amellia Wood for Commonwealth Games Australia

Hopes are high for a young Callum Peters who is through to the middleweight quarter-finals on after making his Commonwealth Games debut.

Hopes are high for a young Callum Peters who is through to the middleweight quarter-finals on after making his Commonwealth Games debut.

Peters impressed in his fight against fellow Indian youngster Sumit with a unanimous win on points after coming back from a rocky start.

The 19-year-old is the youngest in the Australian Boxing Team at Birmingham and will face Guyana’s Desmond Amsterdam in Wednesday’s quarter-final.

Peters’ intentions for glory in his first major campaign were made clear post match.

“I have come for gold and will box my way through to the top,” he said.

“It’s been 10 years in the making for me and my family have backed me through it all.”

After two heartbreaking split decisions earlier in the day, Light flyweight Kristy Lee Harris and light welterweight Billy Polkinghorn have had their Birmingham dreams cut short.

Team captain Harris lost her round of 16 bout against Northern Ireland’s Carly Mc Naul in as 3-2 decision, while Polkinghorn’s end came down to a brutal 4-1 split call.

After her history-making debut in Glasgow in 2014, Harris fought her way through injury to get back in the Commonwealth Games for the 50kg class.

Harris came in with ferocious hooks against Mc Naul to win the first two rounds on points, however the boxers were separated by a mere margin. The final round came down to endurance and saw Mc Naul proceed to the next stage with a win on points after laying consecutive blows to knock Harris down.

“I thought I had a pretty good fight, and it was definitely close,” Harris said.

“I definitely thought I won the first two rounds, but in that last round I felt like I had nothing in me or my legs. I thought I was in front and just had to hold my lead, but it turns out that wasn’t the case, and it was quite a shock when they made the decision.”

Post fight, Harris held the Indigenous flag around her shoulders in a demonstration of allyship.

“I’ve brought out the flag because I didn’t want it to be forgotten about,” she said.

“This is a true flag and I want to show the allyship. The whole world and Australia need to realise our history goes back a lot further than people think.”

After a 30 second knockout in his first bout on Friday, Polkinghorn’s round of 16 fight against Joshua Tukamuhebwa appeared to start with confidence. The pair teased each other before the Ugandan took the first punches, Polkinghorn quick to duck them.

Despite four judges swinging the Australian’s way in the first round, the next two went to Tukamuhebwa.

“Got off to a flying start and feeling like the top of the world, and now it is the lowest of the lows,” Polkinghorn said.

“The team, the whole family, everyone back at home – it has been great to have them there, but I am gutted I couldn’t show them what I wanted to do.”