Olympic boxing: Cindy Ngamba beaten in semi-final but wins historic first refugee team medal

She moved to the UK when she was 10 and cannot return to her birth country of Cameroon because of her sexual orientation – homosexuality carries a sentence of up to five years in prison in the African country.

Ngamba, 20, was arrested along with her brother Kennet and sent from Manchester to a detention camp in London. She faces deportation until her release a day later.

She lives in Bolton, where she started boxing at the age of 15, and has since graduated from the University of Bolton with a degree in criminology.

However, she has not yet obtained British citizenship, which prevented her from being part of the Great Britain team in Paris.

She is training with the team in Sheffield, took part in the pre-Games photoshoot with Team GB and had GB Boxing coaches in her corner against Bylon.

The refugee team was created in 2016 for the Rio Olympics, but failed to win a medal in Brazil or five years later in Tokyo.

Their team is made up of 37 athletes across 12 sports in Paris, with Ngamba being one of the flag bearers at the opening ceremony.

Other athletes include runner Dominic Lobalu, cyclist Eyeru Gebru and taekwondo practitioner Farzad Mansouri.

Elsewhere in Thursday’s boxing, Hasanboy Dusmatov won gold for Uzbekistan in the men’s 51kg category by beating local favourite Billal Bennama.

China’s Yuan Chang also won gold in the women’s 54kg category, beating Turkey’s Hatice Akbas.