Cindy Ngamba won the first ever medal for the Refugee Olympic team on Thursday when she settled for bronze in women’s boxing.
Ngamba, who was born in Cameroon but sought safe haven in Britain at the age of 11, was defeated by Panama’s seventh seed Atheyana Bylon by split in the women’s 75kg semi-final.
Uzbekistan’s Hasanboy Dusmatov won his second Olympic title when he defeated France’s Billal Bennam in the men’s 51kg final.
China’s Chang Yuan also claimed gold, defeating Turkey’s Akbas Hatice in the women’s category under 54 kg.
The Refugee Olympic Team first competed at the 2016 Rio Games and is designed to represent forcibly displaced people around the world.
37 athletes from more than a dozen countries are competing for the team in Paris.
Ngamba, 25, is a lesbian, which is illegal in her native Cameroon.
She qualified for the Olympic competition by right and won two matches in Paris and reached the semi-finals.
Ngamba struggled against her taller Panamanian opponent but continued to attack throughout the match.
She was behind on points after the first round, but came back in the second and left it all to fight for in the last round.
Bylon had a point deducted in the third round, but the Panamanian still did enough to win, much to the chagrin of the crowd at Roland Garros, home of the French Open tennis tournament.
Ngamba did not speak to reporters after the fight, but Bylon said she had “a lot of respect” for her opponent.
“She was very strong,” Bylon said.
She started boxing and rightfully qualified for the Olympic competition.
Britain wanted to select her for the Paris Games and boxing officials unsuccessfully applied for her to obtain a British passport.
Dusmatov won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics and added to his collection by defeating home favorite Bennam via unanimous decision.
The number two Uzbek gave up 22cm to his top-seeded opponent and pitted the French crowd against him.
But he gave another display of the class that also earned him gold medals at the World and Asian Games and came through an entertaining contest.
Chang also scored a unanimous points decision defeating Akbas.
