Career
In the Olympic tournament Saunders" first round victory was followed with defeat in the second round to former victim Alexis Vastine. Following the tournament Saunders made the decision to stay amateur whilst a number of his Team Great Britain colleagues made the move to the professional boxing ranks. In June 2009 Saunders returned to the ring to compete in the European Union championships held in Odense, winning gold and beating a fellow former World Championship bronze medallist Gyula Kate of Hungary along the way.
Just prior to the 2009 World Championships due to be held in Milan, Saunders broke his left thumb in a training bout.
Maybe then I"ll look back and be glad this all happened". World Amateur Championships Defeated Boris Katalinic (Croatia) 23-12 Defeated Gumersindo Carrasco (Argentina) RSCO Defeated Javier Molina (United States) 24-12 Defeated Alexis Vastine (France) 30-13 Lost to Gennady Kovalev (Russia) 8-16 2010 Defeated Anthony Taylor (New Zealand) Defeated Yves Ulysse (Canada) in the quarters Defeated Louis Colin of (Mauritius) in a close scoring semifinal 10-7 Lost to Manoj Kumar of (India) in the final 2-11 Olympic Games Defeated Samuel Kotey Neequaye (Ghana) KO 1 (2:24) Lost to Alexis Vastine (France) 11-7 Saunders signed his first professional contract with Frank Warren and made his professional Boxing debut on 10 February 2012 against Jason Nesbitt scoring a TKO victory in the 3rd round.
On 25 November 2008 Saunders was questioned by police on suspicion of dealing cocaine after a police sniffer dog found what was alleged to be £12000 worth of the drug in his back garden. The charges were dropped against the boxer in April 2009 when the police decided not to proceed with the case.