Four years ago Amir Khan was the sensation of amateur boxing, a 17-year-old facing and beating the best in the world on the way to winning an Olympic silver medal. This year, an 18-year-old in his first year as a senior has been turning plenty of heads and on Saturday Billy Joe Saunders became the seventh British boxer to qualify for this year's Olympic Games.

Saunders, who comes from a travelling family in Hertfordshire, was a highly rated junior at welterweight, but until a month ago he was thought of as a prospect for the London Olympics in 2012 rather than Beijing in August. But in his first year as a senior he stayed unbeaten, winning gold at the Commonwealth Federation Championships, the prestigious Tammer tournament in Finland and recording a string of international wins, including against the United States. When he won a multi-nations tournament in Bulgaria last month - beating Carlos Banteur, the Cuban champion, on the way to gold - he was called up to last week's Olympic qualifying tournament in Pescara, Italy.

After three wins in three days, Saunders lost narrowly to Olexandr Stretsky, of Ukraine, 15-13 on points - his first defeat as a senior. But Saunders showed great maturity to secure his Olympic spot in a third-place box-off by defeating Pavol Hlavacka, of Slovakia, 20-10.

“I thought I beat the Ukrainian and it would have been my 50th straight win,” Saunders said. “I didn't lose any sleep over it and I found it easy to re- focus on my bronze-medal match. In many ways, losing the fight took the pressure off me because I didn't have an unbeaten record any more and maybe my opponent didn't think so much of me. I was aiming at London [in 2012], but I put my head down and trained hard and kept winning.”

Great Britain have seven boxers qualified for Beijing - two more than the total that represented Britain at the past three Olympic Games combined. Frankie Gavin, Joe Murray, Bradley Saunders and Tony Jeffries qualified at last year's World Championships, while James DeGale, the middleweight, and Khalid Yafai, the flyweight, qualified on Friday. Stephen Smith, the featherweight, was beaten in his box-off on Saturday, but there will be one more chance to qualify, in Athens next month.

Saunders hopes that Britain can send a full team. “All the GB squad are like brothers, we live together and train together and it's an honour to be part of the squad,” he said. “To be going all together to Beijing is great, but it's not a holiday, we're going to win medals.

“I know my family and friends back home will be proud of me and, hopefully, me doing this will prove to people that if you put your mind to it you can achieve things like this. []It feels amazing to have got there. It hasn't sunk in yet.”

Explore More Sport

• Athletics

• Boxing

• Cycling

• Sailing

• US Sport