ESPN Olympic Sports

HOUSTON -- The youngsters back at Fort Carson have got nothing on Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Downs.

The 32-year-old father of two became the oldest American boxer in history to make the Olympic team on Saturday night, beating Yathomas Riley to win the 178-pound championship at the U.S. Olympic trials.

A member of the U.S. Army's World Class Athlete Program, Downs served in Iraq from January 2004 to March 2005. He's still on active duty, but the military will allow him to dedicate all of his time training for Beijing.

"This is another feather in the cap," Downs said. "When I go back to the line and tell all those young guys, 17, 18 years old, and they say, 'Come on, Sergeant Downs, get up that hill,' I'll just pull that feather out and say, 'When you make the Olympic team, then you can talk to me like that.' "

Downs only took up boxing in 2003, but stopped when he was deployed to Tikrit, a provincial capital in one of Iraq's most unstable regions.

Downs was a member of a 16-man platoon that was often in the line of fire -- 11 men were wounded and received Purple Hearts, including four under his direct command.

"Every time I went outside the wall, every time I laced up my boots, every time I put a magazine in," he said, "I was afraid for my life."

Downs threw himself into boxing when he returned, setting Beijing as the goal. After what he saw in Iraq, he's never lacked motivation.

"Anybody that sees their friends and superiors put their lives on the line, knowing what can happen to you any second of the day," Downs said, "it changes your perspective. It opens your eyes to a lot of things and opens your mind to a lot of things you probably wouldn't try."

Downs won the last two light heavyweight national titles and captured a bronze medal at the Pan Am Games in July. Still light on experience, Downs said his Army training has made him a better boxer.

"Just being in the Army, that gives you confidence enough in yourself," Downs said. "All the training we do -- jumping from helicopters, jumping out of planes -- you've got to be competent at what you do at all times."

Also Saturday night, Rau'shee Warren became the first American boxer in 31 years to qualify for consecutive Olympic teams by overpowering Qa'id Muhammad in the flyweight championship.

The 20-year-old Warren battered Muhammad from the opening bell and built a 23-1 lead before the referee stopped the fight 1:11 into the second round.

Warren becomes the first U.S. boxer to make back-to-back Olympic squads since Davey Lee Armstrong in 1972 and '76. In 2004, Warren was 17 and the youngest member of the U.S. team when he lost to China's Zou Chiming in Athens.

In other early bouts on Saturday night, Luis Yanez stopped Malcolm Franklin (106 pounds), Gary Russell Jr. defeated Roberto Marroquin (119), Hylon Williams beat Raynell Williams (125) and Sadam Ali stopped Miguel Gonzalez (132).

Yanez, 18, has dominated the light flyweight class since 2006, winning the last two U.S. and Golden Gloves championships and gold at the 2007 Pan Am Games. The Duncanville, Texas, native knocked down Franklin in the second round on his way to an easy 35-11 victory.

Russell beat Marroquin 25-13, avenging a first-round loss to Marroquin on Monday that dropped him into the consolation bracket. The two will fight again on Sunday to determine who will make the Olympic team.

Hylon Williams, a 17-year-old student at Houston's Madison High School, also forced a rubber match on Sunday, beating Raynell Williams 20-16. Raynell, the reigning national champion, edged Hylon by one point on Thursday.

The 18-year-old Ali, from Brooklyn, beat Gonzalez 22-10.

Later Saturday night, Javier Molina beat Danny Garcia (141), Demetrius Andrade stopped Keith Thurman (152), Shawn Estrada defeated Daniel Jacobs (165), Christopher Downs stopped Yathomas Riley (178), Deontay Wilder defeated Quantis Graves (201) and Michael Hunter beat Kimdo Bethel (201-plus).

The 17-year-old Molina, the reigning U.S. welterweight champion, beat Garcia 26-12.

Andrade beat Thurman 21-13. The 19-year-old Andrade won the U.S. welterweight titles in 2005 and '06, but had to drop out of this year's tournament after contracting strep throat. He came back less than two months later and took the silver medal at the Pan Am Games.

Estrada and Jacobs both landed several hard rights in the final round, but Estrada had already built an insurmountable lead and won 24-14.

Wilder, who beat Graves 12-9, won the U.S. and Golden Gloves heavyweight championships this year. The 21-year-old Wilder works two jobs in Tuscaloosa, Ala., to support his 2-year-old daughter, Naieya, who was born with spina bifida.

The 19-year-old Hunter, who won the U.S. title in June, beat Bethel 14-7. Hunter's father, Michael, was a journeyman heavyweight in the early 1990s. He was fatally shot in a confrontation with two police officers on the roof of a Los Angeles hotel in 2006.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press