Cindy Ngamba guaranteed the Refugee Olympic Team their first medal in history after comfortably winning her boxing quarter-final in Paris on Sunday.
Ngamba, who was born in Cameroon but sought safe haven in Britain aged 11, beat France’s Davina Michel with a unanimous points decision to reach the last four of the women’s 75kg category and win at least bronze.
The 25-year-old boxer is a lesbian, which is illegal in her native country.
The Refugee Olympic Team first competed at the Rio 2016 Games and is designed to represent forcibly displaced people worldwide.
There are 37 athletes competing for the team in Paris from more than a dozen countries.
Ngamba qualified by right for the boxing competition — the first Refugee Athlete to achieve that — and has shown she has every right to be in the French capital, winning a second bout in a row with ease for a place in the semi-finals.
Boxing hands out bronze medals for losing semi-finalists.
Britain wanted to select her in their boxing team for the Paris Games and boxing officials appealed unsuccessfully for her to receive a British passport.
Ngamba has had her brushes with officialdom however, as she was arrested and thrown into a detention camp aged 20 when she went to tell the authorities where she was living.
“Imagine thinking you’re just going to sign then go back to your house to go about your day, and then you’re put in the back of a van with handcuffs on,” Ngamba previously told the BBC.
She had a tough upbringing, bullied at school for her poor English, her weight and her body odor. Two gym teachers took her under their wings and introduced her to boxing.
But that is all behind her now and she said that just being in Paris “meant the world” to her.
“I am sure it means the world to people all around the world, not even athletes, that are going through life with so many issues and obstacles, they don’t believe in themselves, and feel like it’s the end of the world,” she said.
