The first "borderless" medal was born at the Paris Olympics
2024-08-10
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China Youth Daily Client, Beijing, August 9 (Intern Li Jingjing, China Youth Daily/China Youth Network reporter Guo Jian) Cindy Ngamba became the first refugee athlete to win a medal at the Olympics late at night on August 8, local time in Paris. Behind her are more than 100 million stateless people - data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shows that the number of refugees recorded worldwide has increased from 19 million in 2016 to more than 110 million. With the turbulence of the world situation, more and more people are in this temporary status.
In the women's 75kg boxing competition held at the Roland Garros Stadium, Cindy Ngamba lost to Atyina Bailon of Panama in the semi-finals. According to the Olympic boxing rules, the two athletes who lost in the semi-finals no longer competed for third and fourth place, and both won bronze medals. Ngamba's bronze medal in the women's boxing 75kg category was the first medal won by a refugee athlete since the formation of the refugee delegation at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
On August 8, local time, Cindy Ngamba won the bronze medal in the women's 75kg boxing competition, which was the first medal won by a refugee athlete in the Olympics. Screenshot of the official website of the 2024 Paris Olympics
Born in Cameroon, Cindy Ngamba moved to the UK at the age of 11. Because her uncle lost her immigration documents, she was sent to a refugee shelter. From the refugee shelter in the UK to the Olympic podium, Ngamba's growth path was full of unknown challenges: in school, she did not speak the language, and two physical education teachers guided her to the road of boxing. In the club where there were no girls, she could only practice with boys, but boxing, a confrontational sport, brought Ngamba to a stage that changed her destiny.
Ngamba won the championship in the first stop of this year's Olympic boxing qualifiers in Italy and qualified for the Olympics. She is one of the few refugee athletes who qualified for the Olympics through qualifying competitions rather than special invitations.
Ngamba hopes that her achievements in the boxing ring can draw more attention to the refugee community she and the other 36 refugee athletes represent. "For me, becoming a refugee athlete is a life-changing opportunity. Refugees are a big family scattered around the world, many of whom have great potential, but the world has not yet opened its doors to them," said Ngamba.
Ngamba trained with the British boxing team, but she could not represent the UK in the competition. "The British boxing team has always stood by me and I feel like I am a member of the British boxing team, but the identity information on the documents shows that I am not," Ngamba said in an interview with local media. Although she has lived in the UK for 15 years, Ngamba, who does not have a passport, still came to the Olympics as a refugee.
From the 2016 Rio Olympics to the 2024 Paris Olympics, the size of the refugee delegation has increased from 10 to 37 in eight years. This year, the refugee team has its own emblem for the first time: a heart-shaped pattern (the logo of the Olympic Refugee Fund) in the center, surrounded by arrows of different colors pointing to the heart, representing solidarity with athletes and displaced people around the world.
Ngamba is undoubtedly lucky among refugees. She received formal boxing training in the UK and is one of 70 refugee athlete scholarship recipients under the International Olympic Committee's Olympic Solidarity Program. She changed her life through sports. "I am just like anyone who has an ideal or goal in life. I just want to pursue it."
As the Olympic Charter states: "The goal of Olympism is to make sport serve the harmonious development of humanity and to promote the building of a peaceful society that upholds human dignity." The Olympic spirit is a way to bring people together. From the 1924 Paris Olympics to the 2024 Paris Olympics, what remains unchanged in the passage of a hundred years is the beautiful pursuit of peace, unity and progress by mankind.
"The refugee delegation will grow, but we don't want to see it grow, it's just that no one can control what happens in the world," UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Yah Pour Bill said in an interview with the media in Paris. "Our ultimate goal is that the world no longer needs refugee delegations."
(Source: China Youth Daily Client)
