Close decision after a wild fight: Cindy Ngamba, in red, lost 1:4 on points to Atheyna Bibeichi Bylon from Panama.
Photo: AFP/Mohd Rasfan
At the end of her semifinal fight, Cindy Ngamba was just angry: It was an hour before midnight, and in the pink and yellow lit Roland Garros Stadium, 15,000 people were cheering for her and her opponent Atheyna Bylon from Panama. But the 25-year-old from the IOC refugee team ran straight out of the arena. Just go away. Television people gestured, reporters called her name, but Ngamba did not react. She stomped stoically toward the locker room. Not a word anymore. A boxer’s heart was broken.
From the dream of Olympic gold: In the end, the judges had the opponent from Panama ahead on their scorecards with a score of 4:1. The refugee starter, who was born in Cameroon but has lived in Great Britain since 2009, put up a really great fight. And in her view of things, she probably deserved the victory in the second semi-final fight in the weight class up to 75 kilograms.
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Her 35-year-old rival from Panama City clearly won the first round. At 1.79 meters tall, the 2014 world champion knew how to keep the impetuous Ngamba at bay. She kept scoring, while Ngamba (1.73 meters) was barely able to assert herself. But in the second round, the refugee starter acted smarter and got through the Central American’s cover more and more often. The round went to her.
In the final three minutes, the refugee starter threw everything into the balance because she was clearly superior in terms of endurance. It was a wild mess of hooks, jabs and straights, with both boxers taking hits. At one point both fighters were so entangled in the rope that they threatened to fall forward. The visibly exhausted Bylon received a warning with a point deduction. At the final signal, the rivals hugged each other tightly, both confident of victory. When the referee finally yanked Bylon’s hand up, the Panamanian did a happy dance. Ngamba froze.
At that moment, it was little consolation to Ngamba that she had written one of the games’ great stories. By reaching the semi-finals, she had already secured the bronze medal, which will now be hung around her neck after the final fight on Saturday. A historic moment: For the first time, an athlete from the IOC refugee team made it onto the Olympic podium. Since Rio 2016, the IOC has been forming a team of refugees. In Paris, 37 people are taking part in the competitions under the Olympic abbreviation EOR (Équipe olympique des réfugiés). They are intended to represent the 100 million people who are on the run worldwide.
Cindy Ngamba came to the UK from Cameroon as a child. A cheerful girl soon became an overweight, shy teenager in her new home – teased by her classmates for her poor English and for not knowing what deodorant was. It wasn’t until she started training at a boxing gym in her hometown of Bolton at the age of 15 that her world changed: she trained obsessively with boys her own age and became one of the best boxers in the country.
She has now won three Great Britain national titles in three different weight classes, trains with GB Boxing at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield and is studying criminology in Bolton. However, several attempts to naturalize them failed. She was once even arrested during a routine check and held in a deportation center for a day and a half before the authorities recognized that Ngamba, who lives openly as a lesbian, was at risk of being persecuted by Cameroon’s justice system. Homosexual acts are punishable there.
The newspaper »Guardian« verriet Ngamba before the games said she was initially embarrassed by her refugee status. But she has long been proud of it: “As you get older, you learn what some people have gone through to become refugees, fleeing war and murder.” She herself is one of the few who got a chance: ” Some never get it. That’s why I want to take advantage of my chance.”
She did that at the Olympics, even if it wasn’t enough to win gold: she repeatedly brought the plight of refugees into the spotlight. And tries to spread hope: »I want to say to all refugees around the world and all refugees who are not athletes, and above all to all people in the world, that you have to keep working hard and believe in yourself. You can achieve anything you set your mind to.”
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