New Delhi - Bhiwani - a small, dusty, potholed northern Indian town - is making headlines as home to the country's remaining hopes at the Beijing Olympics.

The sleepy town in India's northern Haryana state, about 150 kilometres north-west of national capital Delhi, remarkably had three boxers reaching the quarter-final stage at the Games.

And although one went out on Monday, two still have a chance of getting in the medals.

Akhil Kumar, 27, who beat the bantamweight world champion Sergey Vodopyanov to enter the 54kg category quarter-finals, finally bowed out on Monday in a points defeat.

But the town still has high hopes his younger team-mates Jitender Kumar, 21, and Vijender Kumar, 22, can reach the semi-finals.

All the Kumars, who are not directly related, are products of the Bhiwani Boxing Club (BBC), along with Dinesh Kumar, another member of the Indian boxing team at Beijing. All four have trained at the BBC under coach Jagdish Singh, one of Bhiwani's most well-known figures.

In Bhiwani, BBC is not a radio station. It is a destination for scores of pugilists who are among the hundreds enrolled in the town's eight clubs, big and small. Many of them come from adjacent villages.

"Here, one out of 10 kids is into boxing," Bhiwani resident Dilbagh Singh, three-times national champion, was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times newspaper.

Boxing, Bhiwani locals say, is as if not more important than school. After all, it can be a more assured path to money, fame and employment.

Jagdish Singh said at least 250 young boxers from the town had been hired by government organizations like the Indian Railways. Most state-run departments and utilities in India set aside a quota of jobs for sportsmen.

Vijender, who appears to be the most popular of Bhiwani's current lot of Olympians, has a job with the Indian Railways and has modelled for men's magazine Maxim.

He beat Thailand's Angkarn Chomphuphuang in the 75kg middleweight category on Saturday and next steps into the ring on Wednesday against Carlos Gongoro of Ecuador for a place in the semis and at least bronze.

The salaries and funding that the boxers get may not be adequate. "I work with the Railways but if I buy a pair of boxing shoes, I've to worry how to meet my monthly expenditure," Akhil Kumar said in a recent interview.

"I don't aspire for private jets or trendy cars. I just want decent jobs for boxers and some financial security for them, so that they can concentrate on their craft," he added.

The Indian government, seeing potential in its boxers, sent a five-member squad to Beijing and organized a training programme with pugilists in Germany in July besides entering them in two major international competitions this year.

But if they are short on funds and facilities, what the Bhiwani boys have in good measure are dreams and the ability to think big. Akhil, the most senior of the team, said before he set off for Beijing: "For me, there is only one medal - gold."

In a post-match media briefing, he said: "Dreams are not what you have while sleeping, they are those that do not allow you to sleep."

Unfortunately for Akhil his dreams of a medal ended against Moldova's Veaceslav Gojan in a 10-3 points decision on Monday.

Jitender will be hoping for a semi-final place when he comes up against the Russian Georgy Balakshin in the 51kg flyweight category on Wednesday.

Bhiwani has meanwhile been getting ready for a tryst with television, tense that there may be one of the ramshackle town's routine power outages in those crucial moments.