By STEVE BUFFERY -- Toronto Sun
  SYDNEY -- Toronto boxing coach Boris Gitman is a man of few words, at least in English. But his assessment of the Canadian team at the Sydney Games cut right to the chase.

 "Canada?" the Russian native said. "Tragedy."

 This was not the magnificent seven the Canadian Amateur Boxing Association was hoping for. Heading into the Olympic tournament, CABA was sure it would run its medal-winning record at Olympic Games to five in a row.

 That didn't happen. Instead, the squad departs Sydney with a dark cloud over its head. And yesterday, CABA president Hank Summers called for a serious analysis of the entire program in Canada.

 Anything that could have gone wrong did for the Canadian pugilist warriors in Sydney, starting with light-heavyweight Troy Ross of Brampton, who was ousted in the first round after being decked by Jegbefumere Albert of Nigeria. Ross, 25, was the leading gold-medal contender for Canada and his controversial defeat last week sent chills through the team.

 "Troy's loss was a shocker, no question," Summers said. "He was in against a Nigerian whom we simply wrote off. We figured he was just a stepping stone."

 Another standout, Toronto heavyweight Mark Simmons, won his opening bout impressively against Rohoulah Houseini of Iran but froze in his second-round bout against clever German Sebastian Kober and was outclassed. That, combined with losses by Ross and captain Mike Strange early in the tournament, took the wind out of Canada's sails.

 All hope for a medal came down to super-heavyweight Art Binkowski, a tough but limited fighter. A win against Rustam Saidov of Uzbekistan and the Waterloo fighter was in the medals. But he, too, was easily outpointed yesterday and the wall came crashing down on the seven-man team.

 So what went wrong? The most obvious answer is lack of depth. Canada has a proud record in Olympic boxing but, participation wise, it is a fringe sport and rarely attracts the best athletes compared to places such as Cuba, Uzbekistan and Thailand.

 The fact Canada qualified seven fighters for these Games was quite an accomplishment in itself. The qualification tournaments leading to Olympics are difficult, as the International Olympic Committee has cut back the number of participants at Games. The British federation, which has four times the budget as Canada, qualified two for the this tournament. Ireland qualified one.

 Summers said Ottawa has to invest more money into amateur sport, not just boxing.

 Summers said the national team could have used more competition the past year, particularly against European fighters. Team officials said CABA should concentrate on grassroots programs and coaching.

 "We've been coming up a little short and it's not for a lack of heart, desire, determination or preparation," coach Wayne Gordon said. "In the long run we have to look back and do what these countries are doing and develop at the grassroots. I think we do too much short-term with our elite athletes and we put all our eggs in one basket."

 Binkowski agreed that Ross' loss devastated morale, but cited a lack of quality sparring at the team's pre-Olympic training camp.

 "We were looking at Troy to lead us up the mountain," he said. "(But) Troy hardly sparred at all. That (loss to southpaw Albert) wouldn't have happened (if there was proper sparring) and we would be looking at a gold medallist now."