'As soon as I got on the plane, I knew I was saved'



You do not see many lions in Sheffield,
indomitable or otherwise, but Serge Ambomo is
determined to change that.
Ambomo was one of Cameroon's five-man boxing
team at London 2012.
"As soon as I got on the plane to come to England, I
knew I was saved," he says, suggesting he was not
planning to return even then.
"I feel like I've been born again."
The light-welterweight felt "blessed" to be part of the
greatest show on earth and was looking forward to the
competition. But then, he says, the team's officials took
his passport away and told him he would not get it
back unless he won a medal.
Boxing has brought two of the five Olympic medals
Cameroon has ever won, with the "Indomitable Lions"
football team securing the country's first gold in
2000.
But Ambomo lost in the first round, which was hardly
surprising as he says officials neglected to arrange any
training.
It was a similar story for his colleagues. Team captain
Thomas Essomba was the only one to win a bout, and
Cameroon's campaign in the ring was over for another
Olympics when he lost his second fight to Ireland's
Paddy Barnes.
But it was more serious than that for the boxers: this
was the end of their careers. So they, plus a footballer
and a swimmer, left the athletes' village and
disappeared into London's expatriate labyrinth.
A week later, the boxers - Ambomo, Essomba, Christian
Donfack Adjoufack, Abdon Mewoli and Blaise Yepmou
Mendouo - resurfaced at a gym in south London called
the Double Jab.
They told the BBC in August they had been threatened
by senior members of the Cameroonian delegation, and
that they wanted to become professional boxers in the
United Kingdom after their visas expired in November.
The Cameroonian authorities said they were economic
migrants and dismissed their claims of threats as lies.
With 25,000 applicants for asylum in the UK a year,
wanting to come here to make more money is not a
good enough reason: to be allowed to stay you must
demonstrate you are at immediate risk of persecution.
The boxers' initial asylum applications failed, but with
help from church groups and other African emigres
they have now been granted the right to stay. Ambomo
is in Sheffield, Essomba and Yepdou Mendouo are in
Sunderland, Donfack Adjoufack went to Middlesbrough
and Mewoli is in Rotherham.
That was the easy bit. They now have to make the
transition from amateur to professional boxing, with no
track record in this country, no contacts, no ticket-
buying audience and no English. They have got a lot of
heart, though.
Ambomo turned up at Glyn Rhodes's Sheffield Boxing
Centre gym with Ally Kalambayi, a Congolese pastor
from a local African church, a few weeks ago. Rhodes,
who fought 65 times in a 14-year career, was locking
up when the pair appeared.
"You wouldn't believe who walks through these doors
sometimes, so I'm used to it," says Rhodes, whose ring
nickname was "Showboat" and is never more than
about 30 seconds from a quip.
"One of our lads, who thinks he's a bit of a gangster,
was leaving and said, 'Looks like you're in trouble,
Glyn', because Serge might be small but he's got
muscles on muscles, a Mr T haircut and a big, chunky
watch on - you've got to box if you look like that.
"But then his pastor introduced himself and told me
Serge's story. I soon realised that he wasn't just some
kid from Wybourn (one of Sheffield's toughest
estates)."
Ambomo came back to the gym - an upstairs room
rammed full of boxing equipment and memorabilia in
an old school building near Hillsborough - the following
day, and has been doing so ever since.
One of the first people he impressed was Jez Wilson.
The British Masters middleweight champion has
persuaded four other gym regulars to put in £100 each
so Ambomo, who lives with his pastor and is on income
support, can get his British Boxing Board of Control
licence. His interview is in Huddersfield this weekend. It
must seem a very long way from his home town,
Ebebda.
"I'm going to have to make some phone calls," says
Rhodes, mindful time is running out for his new charge
at 27, but that he is also rusty and a hard sell.
"I think I'm going to have to take some chances with
him. I don't think he'll sell tickets in Sheffield. But then
you have the problem that if he looks too good,
nobody will want to fight him either.
"But he needs a lift up and he loves boxing.
"Kids around here don't know they're born. We've got
some who live at the top of the street but are too busy
on their Xbox or iPad to come to training. Compare
that to what Serge has been through."
Cameroon is not Afghanistan or Syria by any means,
but its 200 different linguistic groups are ruled by an
authoritarian government that does not allow much
freedom of expression, and about one third of the
population lives under the international poverty
threshold.
When asked what he likes most about England,
Ambomo says "the safety". He wishes Cameroon
"peace" and prays for his family, who he claims are
now in hiding.
"I'm very worried about them - my mum, dad,
brother, sister, aunts and uncles - they've run away and
I know that I'm perhaps the reason they have had to
go."
It is difficult to know if this is true, but it seems pretty
clear Ambomo believes it is.
Bongben Leocadia, a journalist based in Cameroon, says
the story has not been reported in his homeland, but
confirms life is hard for would-be Olympians in the
country, with little in the way of sports infrastructure
and no financial assistance outside of the main
competitions.
This, of course, makes wealthy countries very attractive
to athletes from developing or more oppressive
nations, as has been the case for more than 50 years.
In 1956 it was Hungarians defecting at the Melbourne
Olympics after the Soviet Union's tanks rolled into
Budapest. Over the next three decades, a steady trickle
of eastern Europeans would escape to the West
whenever the opportunity arose. More recently, it has
been African and Cuban athletes who have refused to
go home.
British immigration officials were expecting this to
happen at London 2012. As well as the Cameroonians,
athletes from Congo, Eritrea, Guinea, Ivory Coast and
Sudan have applied for asylum, with Eritrea's flag-
bearing distance runner Weynay Ghebresilasie now
prospering in Sunderland. The 19-year-old has won 10
of 15 races this year, setting three personal bests.
Can Ambomo achieve his dreams here too?
"I want to be a world champion here in the UK," he
says, with a steely look in his eye.
"I'm ready for any fight, any boxer. I love men like
Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, they inspire me. I want
people to talk about me in the same way."

Comments