Madias Nzesso Ngake, a lesbian weightlifter from Cameroon who sought asylum in the UK after competing in the London 2012 Olympics, has won a silver medal for her adopted home at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Ngake was outed to her team during the London Games when she was aged just 20 and feared returning to Cameroon, which is one of the few countries where consensual relationships between women are punished on the same basis as those between men.
Had she returned, she could have faced up to five years in prison. Instead, she chose an uncertain future in the UK.
“I had to leave because someone on the team knew about my situation, that I am a lesbian,” Ngake told The Guardian after winning silver for Team England.
“When I left the Olympics in 2012, I got on a bus. After the last stop, they told me this is closed, so I can’t go anywhere. So I decided I will sleep outside at the bus stop. I slept rough for about a month. Nobody looked after me.”
A new life in Britain
She applied for asylum two months later, but it took another five years before she obtained the right to work in the UK.
She then worked as an office cleaner for nine years with no thought about returning to the sport she loved.
Then, in 2022, Birmingham stepped in to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games after Durban pulled out.
During those games, one of her former coaches from Cameroon stayed with her, and he encouraged her to begin weightlifting again.
“One of my coaches was still with the team, travelling over for Birmingham 2022 and … he came to stay with me and kept pushing me to start again,” she told BBC Sport.
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“I’d stopped everything, but he encouraged me, and when I did lift a bar again, yes, it felt so natural, it felt right, and that was very exciting.”
In 2023 she returned to win gold at the British International and then silver in snatch lifting at the 2024 World Championships for Great Britain, before entering the Commonwealth Games as the top seed in the women’s 86kg division.
On Wednesday, Ngake lifted a 128kg barbell over her head to win silver. Australia’s Eileen Cikamatana took the gold.
Ngake now plans to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where, if she wins, it will be her second Olympic medal.
While she didn’t win in 2012, she was awarded the bronze seven years later after a doping scandal disqualified the winners in her category at the London Olympics.
Other medal winners at the Glasgow Games
Ngake was one of only 11 openly LGBTQIA+ athletes at the Glasgow Games, with eight of those winning medals either individually or as part of teams.
Australia’s Amy Atwell and Marena Whittle won gold against Uganda in 3×3 basketball.
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England’s Lucy Robinson also took gold in wheelchair 3×3 basketball, and Wales’ Lowri Thomas won gold as part of her track cycling team sprint team.
Scotland’s Robyn Love won silver in wheelchair 3×3 basketball while Northern Ireland’s Michaela Walsh beat India’s Jasmine Lamboria in the boxing under 57kg category.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Michelle-Lee Ahye won bronze as part of her team in the 4×100-meter relay.
Human Rights at the Games
The Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games didn’t shy away from member nations’ human rights records, with a special exhibition highlighting those Commonwealth countries that still criminalise homosexuality taking place throughout the international sporting competition.
“Zero Flags Commonwealth” was a special presentation by the international Zero Flags Project created specially for the Glasgow Games in Scotland and featured the 28 flags of those Commonwealth countries, with each bearing a black ribbon of mourning.
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