To lose one Saunders was unfortunate but to lose two Saunders in a day felt like a wholesale calamity for Britain's much-touted boxing team here in the Beijing Workers' Gymnasium tonight.

First, it was Billy Joe Saunders who bit the dust in the welterweight division before his fellow medal hope, light-welterweight Bradley Saunders underperformed with a vengeance.

So just 24 hours after team captain David Price's dynamite right hand seemed designed to have ignited an explosion of optimism through the ranks of his men, severe deflation had taken hold. Remember how it was only a few weeks ago when Amir Khan, the silver medallist from Athens, was predicting that all eight Beijing-bound British boxers could grab a medal? Well, now there's just four still standing.

First, it was the exit of "Funtime" Frankie Gavin before a punch had been thrown in anger; then bantamweight Joe Murray's disappointing first-round loss at bantamweight.

But, on a day which coach Terry Edwards had recognised as a pivotal one for the entire campaign, to lose two such major hopes quickly had the former London cabbie scrambling for platitudes, muttering about how things would be different in 2012.

Forget 2012. In Beijing 2008, a boxing team branded the best to leave British shores is stuttering alarmingly. Even the day's sole consolation - a victory for Sunderland light-heavyweight Tony "Jaffa" Jeffries over Colombian Eleider Alvarez on countback after the scores were locked at 5-5 - wasn't exactly convincing.

What an anti-climax after Price, still on a 6ft 9in high after a sleepless night thinking about how he'd demolished the world's No1 super heavyweight, Russian Islam Timurziev, arrived at ringside here today ready to believe he had inspired new resolve in the lads who'd chosen him as their leader.

Sadly, though, as soon as the team's beloved teenage starlet Billy Joe departed the ring here today, his Olympic dream and one of the Games' most romantic stories already consigned to history, you could just feel how his mates were as crestfallen as they'd been elated the previous night.

The "Caravan kid" was beaten on points 13-6 at the quicksilver hands of Cuban welterweight Carlos Banteaux Suarez and, at a stroke one of the most romantic stories of the Games was over.

The idea of an 18-year-old dad from a Romany community being transported from a travellers' site near Welwyn all the way to the Olympic podium really was an illusion after all.

Losing Billy Joe in this competition was like having the life and soul of the team ripped out, he's so popular with his mates.

He's a young, free spirit who, as Edwards put it, is "much loved" by the entire squad - even when he's been trying to pull down their shorts just as they're having their pictures taken.

Nobody wanted his adventure to end in bitterness but this startling prospect suddenly did look very young as he ended up moaning about the judging of his fight being "unbelievable".

It was his misery talking. The judging was, as Edwards said, "inconsistent" with some of Saunders' body shots mysteriously not registering on the judges' radar but even the coach recognised there could be no real complaint about him succumbing to a 13-6 points verdict.

Saunders had expected so much more of himself after having beaten Suarez six months earlier in a competition in Bulgaria but he had nothing to berate himself for against an opponent of true class.

Indeed, Billy Joe had made a great impression here, in and out of the ring. There'd been worldwide interest here in the kid whose family has been steeped in the folklore of prize-fighting ever since his great grandfather Absolom Beeney was champion bare knuckle boxer, fighting in fairground booths.

What though, we wondered, would Absolom have made of a fight decided only on the vagaries of the computer judging system? Saunders' complaint was about landing decent body shots which weren't getting scored at all. He may well have had a point that he should have been closer than 9-5 down going into the last round.

"The scores are absolutely so bad here for an Olympic Games, it's unbelievable," muttered the lad. "In the last round I thought I'd have pulled in six or seven points for the body shots but they're just not scoring them."

Forced to go for the kayo, the teenage southpaw had to abandon his game plan and found himself getting picked off neatly in the final exchanges by Suarez, an orthodox technician who seemed to enjoy making a nonsense of the idea that Cuban boxing mastery is a thing of the past.

Yet Billy Joe's namesake, Bradley, later had no excuses for his woeful effort against Frenchman Alexis Vastine, a man he'd hammered 30-13 in last year's world championships.

With the stakes rather higher here, though, Bradley admitted he had let his heart rule his head and "was thinking too far ahead in the competition". Fatal. Blessed with a friendly draw, he had a clear path to the final but became ragged as he got picked off at range quite comfortably and, despite a late rally, he was beaten 11-7.

Jeffries just about got away with his victory over Alvarez, blowing a onepoint lead with 15 seconds left and being left "praying to God" that he'd be given the verdict on countback but at least the 25-year-old now has a quarter-final clash with Hungary's Imre Szello.

Increasingly, it's looking as the challenge may come down to another captain's innings from the big man.