AAP - August 11, 2008, 5:09 pm
Outclassed Australia are still looking for their first victory on the Olympic judo mats after all four competitors lost their first-round bouts on the weekend.
It's hoped former Hungarian and 2000 Olympic medallist Maria Pekli will turn the tables on her former country on Monday to break Australia's duck at the Beijing Games.
Dennis Iverson will take on Turkey's Sezer Huysuz in the men's lightweight class at the same time as Pekli as Australia look to avoid a third straight day's clean sweep.
Kristi-Ann Ryder (52kg) and Steven Brown (66kg) both lost first round bouts at the Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium on Sunday leaving the team with an 0-4 record.
But Pekli, competing in her fifth Olympics, is seen as one of the country's best judokas after winning bronze in Sydney eight years ago following her defection from Hungary.
The 36-year-old Melbourne mother will face a tough challenge in fighting Hungarian Bernadette Baczko, 22, who won bronze at last year's world championship.
Veteran Cathy Arlove can make amends for her Athens heart-break on Tuesday when the Australia judo team look to her for some belated Beijing joy.
Arlove, the biggest hope in Australia's 13-strong team, will start her third Olympics desperate to go at least one better than the 2004 Games when she was controversially denied a bronze medal.
The technically-impressive 63kg Victorian made the third-place playoff in Athens against a Japanese opponent she beat in the minor rounds but came unstuck on the mat.
A sporting all-rounder who also competes in track cycling and wrestling, 37-year-old Arlove faces a tough first-round test against former world champion Daniela Krukower in the "half-middleweight" (63kg) division.
Krukower was the first Argentinian to win a judo world title in 2003 but Arlove performed better than her at last year's world championships.
Australia endured a forgettable but not unexpected weekend on the mat when all four fighters were bundled out of the competition in the first round.
Indonesian-born school student Mark Anthony, 18, will also have his chance to shine in the 81kg men's division at the Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium on Tuesday.
Anthony, in his last year of study at Lara Secondary College in Geelong, will go in as an underdog in his first-round bout with Columbian Mario Valles.
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