Madias Ngake won 86kg silver for England at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games on Wednesday, 14 years after fleeing Cameroon and seven years after being awarded an Olympic medal she has never held.
The 34-year-old weightlifter competed for Cameroon at London 2012, where she finished sixth overall after winning the B Final. Her result was later upgraded to a bronze medal after three athletes who finished above her were disqualified for doping offences.
But Ngake has never returned to Cameroon since arriving in the UK for those Games and has never seen the medal, which she believes remains in a drawer somewhere in the country’s capital, Yaounde.
Ngake, now based in Nottingham, disappeared from the athletes’ village after her sexuality became known. Homosexuality is illegal in Cameroon and can be punished by imprisonment. She said fear for her safety led her to remain in Britain, a decision she viewed as her only route to “safety and freedom”.
“After I finished competing in 2012, staying was not easy, but I had to take a decision for my safety, for my future, because I saw I did not have a future any more in Cameroon,” Ngake says.
“I’m a lesbian, I love women and it’s not allowed in Cameroon. I had to stay here for me to have a good future, good life and not hurt myself if I decide to have a girlfriend.”
Her first months in the UK were far removed from the glamour of the Olympics. Without friends, accommodation or money, Ngake spent around two months sleeping on the streets, sometimes on buses and sometimes outside after they stopped for the night.
“When I decided to stay, sometimes I would sleep on the bus, but when the bus stopped [for the night], I would sleep outside,” she recalls with a shrug. “When I wanted to have a shower, I would maybe find a place outside, in public, so to change myself was not too easy.”
She eventually applied for asylum and was provided with temporary accommodation while her case was considered. Sport was no longer part of her life; her priority was finding a way to make the UK her home.
Ngake had been born in Douala, Cameroon’s largest city, about 200 miles west of Yaounde. She does not often revisit her childhood, describing it only as a period filled with “challenges”, but weightlifting had given her a way to demonstrate her ability and dream of changing attitudes towards female athletes in Cameroon.
At the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games, the then 18-year-old finished fourth. She lifted the same total as India’s bronze medallist Laishram Devi but missed out on the podium because she weighed more than her rival.
The result was overshadowed by a dramatic finish. Ngake collapsed shortly after completing a successful 121kg lift and left the competition on a stretcher.
“Not just anybody can qualify for a Commonwealth Games,” she smiles. “It means you’re strong and, can I say, special?”
Limited resources, alongside widely reported corruption scandals involving several international federations in Cameroon, made international competition difficult. Ngake arrived at London 2012 with a relatively low ranking and was placed in the B Final, for athletes not considered realistic medal contenders.
She won that final and lifted more than many competitors in the elite division, securing sixth place overall. At the time, she described the achievement as “amazing”, although there was no opportunity to celebrate before she made the decision to leave the athletes’ village.
Nearly five years passed before Ngake obtained the paperwork needed to work permanently in the UK. She began as an office cleaner, a job she held full-time for nine years, first in Leeds and later in Nottingham.
“At first, I was an office cleaner and yes, that was my full-time job for nine years,” the now 34-year-old says. “I was in Leeds, then I moved to Nottingham.”
For a decade, she did not think about weightlifting. Her return began when the 2022 Commonwealth Games moved to Birmingham after Durban lost the hosting rights for failing to meet key milestones and provide financial guarantees.
Former Cameroon team-mates and coaches were among those coming to Britain for the event. One of Ngake’s former coaches visited her in Nottingham and urged her to train again.
“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.”
A year later, Ngake won gold at the British International. Within another 12 months she had returned to international competition and won silver in the snatch at the 2024 World Championships for Great Britain.
That performance helped establish her as a major-event medal contender. As a naturalised athlete, she became eligible for UK Sport funding, allowing her to leave cleaning work and train full-time.
European bronze followed earlier this year, and Ngake arrived at Glasgow 2026 as the top seed in the women’s 86kg category. Her silver medal was her latest achievement after an absence of 14 years from major multi-sport competition.
“This moment means a lot to me,” the weightlifter said before competing. “For Team England to have given me this second opportunity, it is amazing.”
Ngake is not the only Cameroon-born weightlifter representing England. Cyrille Tchatchet II sought asylum after competing at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and is due to make an emotional return to Scotland later this week.
Both athletes recognise that asylum seekers are not universally welcomed in the UK. Ngake said people who come to the country must respect its laws and society.
“Some people come here, apply for asylum seeker and they are very good people, but some are not good, so there is a mix,” she says.
“I’m not going to say I’m good or bad, but I work here for a very long time, I pay tax and for me, if you want to apply for asylum seeker [status], you have to respect the law of this country.”
“I didn’t come to this country and want to bring my laws from Cameroon to England. No, that’s not good and that’s why we have a lot of problems. For me, if you want to live here, you have to respect the country and you have to love this country, that’s why you stay.”
“For me, I love this country and it would be amazing to win a Commonwealth medal for this country.”
Ngake’s London 2012 bronze was only Cameroon’s sixth Olympic medal. She would like to collect it from the country of her birth, but remains unwilling to return because of its politics.
“The best thing for me would be to go back to Cameroon and take the medal, but I don’t want to go back because of the politics there,” she says.
Her next target is qualification for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. If she wins a medal there, it will be the first Olympic medal she has been able to hold herself.
“Very challenging, but [it would be] very, very special,” Ngake says with a smile.
