The boxer Cindy Ngamba, the first woman of the world’s refugees to win the Olympic medal, which takes place to make her debut on the entirely female combat card

Something stood out in Cindy Ngamba as she looked around the first time that Friday’s entirely female boxing event was announced.

So many world championship belts. Ngamba wants one.

“I saw Natasha Jonas and Lauren Price and Caroline Dubois with their belts, and I remember saying” Oh, it looks good, I would like to have one, “she said.

To reach the goals is a kind of ngamba thing. At the Paris Games, she became the first athlete in competition as a refugee to win a medal when she took bronze in the average weight category.

Ten years ago, Ngamba, born in Cameroon, thought that she was about to be expelled from Great Britain. Now she should make her professional debut at the Royal Albert Hall. It faces the veteran Kirsty Bavington in a fight of subsequent weight in London as part of a fully female card titled by the unification fight for the world title Jonas vs Price Welterweight.

Lauren Price during media training sessions. | Photo credit: Reuters

“I can see it, this dream of having a belt and being the world champion,” said Ngamba The Associated Press“But at the same time, you must be in the present and you have to make sure to do the work.”

Ngamba, 26, is trying not to think too much about the future. This is because she knows that circumstances can change so quickly.

Ngamba had arrived in Great Britain at the age of 11 – his father and siblings also live here – in Bolton, just north of Manchester, and began to learn English and try to integrate. She picked up boxing at the age of 15, and it became an escape from the stress of worrying about her residence status.

She described to be arrested in adolescence during recording in an immigration center in Manchester.

“My case was still pending. I applied and they rejected it. When they reject your case, you have to go there again. I was in a situation where even if I reappeared every time, they could have stopped me at any time, “she said. “I have visualized that they could stop in the street or in my house, at school or with my friends. I never knew that it was going to be in an immigration center where I am usually (went) every weekend. »»

Worried she was deported, she thought herself: “” I have no one in Cameroon, no family in Cameroon. Who will take care of me? »»

She was owned overnight in a detention center in London before being released.

Ngamba, who came out gay at the age of 18, finally won his case and received refugee status. Homosexual relations in Cameroon can cause five -year prison terms in the country.

His progress in the boxing ring – Ngamba was an amateur champion of England with three different weights – drew the attention of the British elite development program. Ngamba was brought to Spar the tastes of Jonas, Price and others in the hope that it would end up competing for Great Britain.

Ngamba, one of the flag bearers of the Olympic refugee team during the opening ceremony in Paris, is still considered one of their own to “GB boxing”.

After the Olympic Games, her name was added to the Wall of Fame of the English Sports Institute in Sheffield, and she joined the British Olympians during a reception of the Buckingham Palace where she met King Charles III.

The main attraction is a Welter weight confrontation of generations with Natasha Jonas, 40, confronted with Lauren Price, 30 years old.

The two are former Olympians. The boxer Welsh Price (8-0) won a gold medal for Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021. She is the WBA champion.

Jonas (16-2-1), from Liverpool, participated in the 2012 London Games when women’s boxing made its debut in the Olympic program. She fell below a medal when she lost to Katie Taylor of Ireland in the quarterfinals. Jonas holds Welter WBC and IBF weight titles.

The American boxer Mikaela Mayer holds the other big major belt – the WBO championship.

WBC Lightweight champion Caroline Dubois is also on the map. Dubois, whose older brother Daniel is the IBF heavyweight champion, will face Bo Mi re Shin from South Korea.

This is the second entirely female event of the promotion company Boxxer and Sky Sports after their October 2022 event in an O2 arena with closed counters (20,000 capacities) in London. Sky said this event had an audience of more than 2 million in Great Britain and Ireland.

In comparison, Royal Albert Hall is a smaller arena with a sale scheduled for 5,200. The place however goes back to boxing.