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UK-based boxer Cindy Ngamba officially became the first athlete to win a medal for the Refugee Olympic Team, when she sealed bronze on Sunday. On Thursday night, she has a shot at silver or gold.
Five athletes based in Great Britain were named in the 37-strong Refugee Olympic Team for this summer’s Games in Paris, overseen by Chef de Mission Masomah Ali Zada – who picked out the three-time English champion as one to watch.
She beat France’s Davina Michel in the quarter-finals of the women’s middleweight event on Sunday, and was guaranteed a bronze medal by progressing to the semi-finals. Next, she faces Panama’s Atheyna Bylon, with a gold-medal match on the line.
Last month, Ngamba became the first refugee boxer to independently secure an Olympic quota place with victory over Kazakhstan’s Valentina Khalzova in the women’s 75kg quarter-finals of the Road to Paris First World Qualification Tournament.
Ali Zada, an Afghani cyclist who was herself part of the last Refugee Olympic Team in Tokyo, said: “Already we have a girl in boxing, Cindy, who qualified by herself and I’m sure that she will be able to bring home a medal.
“We hope that she could win an Olympic medal for the first time in the history of the Refugee Olympic Team.”
Ngamba was born in Cameroon and moved to the UK aged 11 and has spoken candidly about the challenges she has faced obtaining citizenship since, including the time she was sent to a detention camp over paperwork issues she feared would lead to deportation.
Now 25, she has been able to train alongside top British boxers like Natasha Jonas and Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Lauren Price.
She recently told the Olympic Channel that if selected, the opportunity would be “mind-blowing. It will be the most beautiful thing ever. Most amazing thing that will ever happen to me, and I will cherish it for the rest of my life.”
Although the Refugee Olympic Team still walked out for the opening ceremony under the Olympic flag, this year they have their own emblem and kit.
“It matters 100 per cent,” Ngamba said of the emblem. “The foundation is about the team, about a family. Being part of the unique family is what it is all about.
“We competed individually in the past, or 2-3 of us. Now we are a big group, a family going out there to represent the refugee team. We will hold our head high and be proud of the team we are part of.
“It shows we are not just refugees, we are athletes. [People] see us as refugees but forget we are athletes with the same goals as the other countries represented here. We can achieve the same thing, win the same thing, have the same drive, the same hunger and the same energy.”
The IOC unveiled its first refugee team for the Rio 2016 Games with 10 athletes to raise awareness of the issue as hundreds of thousands of people were pouring into Europe from the Middle East and elsewhere escaping conflict and poverty.
The team that competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, held in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, was already almost three times bigger than the Rio team, with 29 athletes.
“Just for our name ‘refugee Olympic team’ to be called out, refugees all around the world will acknowledge us,” Ngamba told Reuters.
“We are seen as a team, we are seen as athletes, as fighters, hungry athletes who are part of a family. We are not afraid, not ashamed and are proud to be refugees. We know we are not with them but we can feel the energy.”
