Melbourne light-heavyweight Aaron Spagnolo has salvaged some pride on a dismal day for Australia at the World Amateur Boxing Championships in Qatar.
Spagnolo was the only one of four fighters to win his preliminary round contest with an impressive display against Tashi Norbu of Bhutan to seal a comfortable points victory.
The 24-year-old used his superior height and reach advantage to see off Norbu and set up a second-round clash with Juan Carrillo of Colombia on Friday.
But it was a day to forget for Joseph Goodall, Joshua Keirl and Nathan Webber who all crashed out.
Commonwealth Games super-heavyweight silver medallist Goodall struggled against the awkward style of Georgia's Mikheil Bakhtidze and lost all three rounds on the judges' scorecards.
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It was a similar story for Keirl who was defeated by Britain's Joseph Cordina, with the Victorian having no answer to the quick hands and feet of the impressive Englishman in the lightweight division.
Webber put up a gallant display against another British fighter in Joshua Kelly and certainly had his moments in the final round of the welterweight contest and could feel a little unlucky to go out on an unanimous points decision.
With the exits of bantamweight Jayden Hansen and heavyweight Jason Whateley on Tuesday, Australia have only four of their nine-strong team remaining in a tournament that guarantees Olympic qualification with a top-three finish.
Light-flyweight Joshua English is first up against Dmytro Zamotaev from the Ukraine and is followed by Adelaide welterweight David Biddle.
Biddle, who was an impressive winner over Argentina's Ronan Sanchez on Tuesday, faces a huge test when he goes up against Asian champion and world No.2 Wuttichai Masuk of Thailand.
Highly-rated middleweight Daniel Lewis then kicks off his campaign and also has a tough second round opponent in Ireland's Michael O'Reilly.
Unlike previous years where a quarter-final spot at the world championships guaranteed an Olympic berth, the path to Rio has been made even more difficult for Australian boxers by world governing body AIBA, who have demanded they now qualify through the highly competitive Asian division.
This is a result of the poor showing in the London Games where Australia had one of the biggest teams, thanks to qualification through Oceania, but had only one fighter make it to the quarter-finals.
It leaves Australia with the daunting prospect of not having a male fighter at an Olympics for the first time since 1920.
