By ED SCHUYLER JR. -- Associated Press
 Heavyweight Felix Savon, a pillar of Cuban sports success, will try to become the third boxer to win three Olympic gold medals when he returns to Sydney for the first time since he won a world title there nine years ago.

 In contrast to the 32-year-old Savon, also a winner of three other world championships, is Michael Bennett, a 29-year-old heavyweight from Chicago who began boxing after he was released from prison in 1998. He served seven years for armed robbery.

 Bennett won the 201-pound gold medal at the world championship in Houston in 1999 when Savon refused to fight to protest a decision against a Cuban in an earlier bout.

 Bennett is one of three world champions on the 12-boxer U.S. team, whose average age is about 23.

 The other world champions are 19-year-old Brian Viloria of Waipahu, Hawaii, at 106 pounds, and 20-year-old Ricardo Juarez of Houston, at 125.

 "We're going to get our share of medals," head coach Tom Mustin said. "It's one of the better teams we've put together."

 U.S. boxers have not won more than one gold medal since they got three in 1988 at the Seoul Games. The only gold among three medals in 1992 in Barcelona was won by Oscar De La Hoya at 132 pounds. David Reid (156) was the gold medalist in 1996 in Atlanta, where U.S. boxers also won five bronze medals.

 With the exception of Bennett, the U.S. boxers are veterans of open competition, but they lack the international experience of many boxers from Europe and Cuba.

 While there are some new faces on the Cuban team, joining Savon are such veterans as Juan Hernandez, Maikro Romero, Manuel Mantilla and Alexis Rubalcaba.

 Hernandez, who will box at 156 pounds, won Olympic silver medals in 1992-96 and world championships in 1991, 1995 and 1999 at 147 pounds. Romero, the 1996 Olympic champion at 112 pounds, will box at 106, a weight at which he was the world champion in 1997 and runner-up in 1999, losing 9-2 to Viloria in the final. Mantilla won a world title in 1997 and Rubalcaba was a 1996 Olympic quarter finalist and a 1999 Pan American Games champion.

 For good measure, there is Mario Kindelan, reigning world and Pan Am Games champion.

 As strong as the Cuba team is, it will have a hard time living up to the expectations of coach Alcides Sagarra.

 "We are going to clean up," he said. "What we want is the national hymn (played) 12 times, our flag raised 12 times."

 The most gold medals won by Cuba in an Olympics were seven in 1992. Cuban boxers won six golds in 1980 at the Moscow Games, boycotted by the United States and several other nations. The Cubans went home from Atlanta with four golds and two silvers.

 Should Savon succeed, he would join Teofilo Stevenson of Cuba and Lazlo Papp of Hungary as Olympic triple champions. Stevenson was heavyweight champion in 1972-76-80, and Papp won at 165 pounds in 1948 and at 156 pounds in 1952-56. Savon won in 1992 and '96.

 Some other 1996 Olympic medalists who will compete in Sydney include: Somluck Kamsing, 125, Thailand, gold; Oleg Saitov, 147, Russia, gold; Bumat Jamadilov, 112, Kazakhstan, silver; Rafael Lozano, 106, Spain, bronze; Marian Simion, 156, Romania, bronze at 147; and Alexei Lezin, super heavyweight, Russia, bronze.

 The United States and Cuba are the only countries that will have full 12-boxer teams. For the first time, boxers had to qualify for the games in a series of tournaments in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Cuba was exempt from qualifying because it is ranked No. 1 in the world.

 Nine U.S. boxers qualified by winning semifinal bouts at a tournament for boxers from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean in March in Tampa, Fla.

 They were Bennett; Juarez; Jose Navarro, 112, Los Angeles; Clarence Vinson, 119, Washington; Marshall Martinez, 132, Fontana, Calif.; Ricardo Williams Jr., 139, Cincinnati; Jermain Taylor, 156, Little Rock, Ark.; Jeff Lacy, 165, St. Petersburg, Fla.; and Calvin Brock, super heavyweight, Charlotte, N.C.

 Martinez, however, left the team for personal reasons and was replaced by David Jackson of Seattle. Because Martinez had qualified, Jackson did not need to.

 Viloria and Dante Craig, 147, of Cincinnati failed to qualify in Tampa, then qualified by winning semifinals in Tijuana, Mexico. So did Olanda Anderson, an Army staff sergeant stationed at Ft. Carson, Colo., who replaced world champion Michael Simms Jr. of Sacramento, Calif.

 Some 280 boxers from 64 countries and Puerto Rico are expected to compete.

 The effect on boxing of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc can be seen. Boxers from former Soviet Republics and Eastern Europe can now turn pro and their amateur programs aren't as strict or as strong as they once were.

 Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan each have 10 boxers in the competition, as does host Australia. East Germany was once a power, but there will be only seven boxers from a united Germany in Sydney. Hungary, whose boxers have won 10 gold medals in past Olympics, has only one boxer. Bulgaria, which has four gold medalists, has only two boxers.

 The top Asian teams in terms of numbers are South Korea and Thailand, with nine each. The top African teams are Algeria and Egypt, with eight each.