Madias Ngake stood on the podium for England at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with a silver medal around her neck. Yet the medal she considers more important is one she has never been able to hold.
Ngake won silver in the women’s 86kg weightlifting competition on July 29, finishing behind Australia’s Eileen Cikamatana. Afterward, she told TNT Sports that the result ranked “second behind my Olympic bronze medal,” according to BBC Sport.
That Olympic bronze dates to London 2012, when Ngake represented Cameroon in the women’s 75kg event. She originally finished sixth. Years later, doping disqualifications moved her into the bronze-medal position — but the physical medal never reached her.
Fourteen years after London, Ngake believes it remains in Cameroon, a country she has not returned to since the Games.
How Ngake became an Olympic bronze medalist
The podium Ngake saw in London looked very different from the official result that emerged years later.
Kazakhstan’s Svetlana Podobedova originally won gold, Russia’s Natalya Zabolotnaya took silver and Belarus’ Iryna Kulesha earned bronze. All three were later disqualified after the International Olympic Committee reanalyzed samples from London 2012.
The International Weightlifting Federation’s anti-doping records list all three women among the London 2012 athletes whose cases ultimately resulted in disqualification.
Those sanctions reshuffled the women’s 75kg standings and elevated Spain’s Lydia Valentín to gold, Egypt’s Abir Khalil to silver and Ngake to bronze.
The timeline is more complicated than simply saying Ngake was “awarded” the medal on one particular date. The doping cases and results corrections unfolded after London, while the recognition and physical distribution of reallocated medals followed separate timelines.
In a 2024 IWF profile, the federation said Ngake was promoted to third four years after the Olympics. Ngake said she did not learn she had become an Olympic bronze medalist until 2020.
By then, her life had moved far beyond the weightlifting platform.
Why Ngake has never held the medal
Ngake never returned to Cameroon after competing at the London Olympics.
She told BBC Sport that during the 2012 Games, her sexuality became known to someone connected with the Cameroonian team. Ngake, who is a lesbian, said she feared returning home and left the athletes’ village rather than travel back with the delegation.
She remained in Britain and later sought asylum. In the BBC Sport account of her experience, Ngake described safety and the prospect of living openly as central to her decision to stay.
Cameroon continues to criminalize consensual same-sex sexual activity between both men and women. Human Dignity Trust says the country’s law provides for prison sentences ranging from six months to five years, along with a fine.
Ngake’s first months in Britain were difficult. She has said she slept rough after leaving the Olympic Village before eventually rebuilding her life and working as a cleaner. Elite weightlifting largely disappeared from her life for more than a decade.
The physical Olympic medal remained elsewhere.
Its precise location has not been independently established. Ngake told the IWF in 2024 that she believed it was at the Cameroon federation, while her 2026 BBC interview indicated that she suspected it remained somewhere in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital.
As of Aug. 12, 2026, no authoritative report reviewed for this article indicates that Ngake has received the medal or that a ceremony to present it to her has been scheduled.
Ngake returns to the podium for England
Ngake eventually found her way back to international weightlifting.
In December 2024, she competed at the IWF World Championships in Bahrain, her first IWF competition since London 2012 and her first representing Great Britain. She finished eighth overall in the women’s 87kg category but earned a clean-and-jerk medal.
Her comeback continued at the European level. She won clean-and-jerk bronze at the 2025 European Championships before another strong showing in 2026.
At the 2026 European Championships, British Weight Lifting recorded Ngake with silver in the snatch and bronze in the total in the women’s 86kg category. She lifted 111kg in the snatch and 129kg in the clean and jerk for a 240kg total.
Three months later, she returned to a major multi-sport Games for the first time since London.
Competing for England in Glasgow, Ngake led after the snatch with a 111kg lift. She added 128kg in the clean and jerk for a 239kg total. Cikamatana overtook her with a 140kg clean and jerk and finished with 248kg, while Canada’s Rose Beaudoin took bronze with 230kg.
The silver gave Ngake something her Olympic bronze never had: a podium moment and a physical medal she could take home herself.
It also capped an international comeback that would have been difficult to imagine during her years away from elite competition.
Will Ngake ever receive her Olympic bronze?
Ngake’s status as an Olympic bronze medalist is settled. The unresolved part is whether the medal itself will ever reach her.
Her story spans several distinct events: a sixth-place finish in London, doping cases that eventually transformed the official standings, her decision not to return to Cameroon and the later discovery that she had become an Olympic medalist.
Correcting the record could give Ngake the result she had earned, but it could not recreate the experience she missed. She never stood on the Olympic podium in London, never received the medal there and did not know at the time that the athletes ahead of her would later be disqualified.
Her Glasgow silver came under very different circumstances.
Fourteen years after London, Ngake was able to stand on a major Games podium and leave with her medal in hand. The Olympic bronze she still ranks above it remains the one she has never been able to hold.