Tammara Thibeault's quest to become Canada's first Olympic female boxing champion ended after one fight.
Thibeault's 25-fight winning streak ended with a loss via split decision to Cindy Ngamba of the IOC Refugee Team in the opening bout for both fighters on Wednesday in Paris.
Ngamba now advances to the women's 75-kg quarterfinals.
"Close fight, she's a good opponent," Thibeault told reporters, per the Canadian Olympic Committee. "Didn't go my way, but that's part of sport."
An emotional Thibeault shared a warm embrace with Ngamba after the fight.
Thibeault, whose father Patrick is a former CFL wide receiver, hadn't lost a fight since being eliminated in the quarterfinals at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She captured world championship gold in 2022 before Canada didn't attend last year's world championship in protest against the sport's governing body.
Canada hasn't won an Olympic boxing medal since David Defiagbon took silver in 1996 in Atlanta.
The country's last boxing gold was Lennox Lewis in 1988 in Seoul.
Ngamba, meanwhile, recorded the big win after being one of the flag-bearers for the Refugee team at the opening ceremony
“Being here means the world to me, and I hope it means the world to many other people," she said, per Olympics.com. "There are many refugees around the world who are not even athletes, who are going through many different issues, so many obstacles and they don’t believe in themselves. I hope that them watching me, they can see that through anything in life I was able to overcome.”
The Cameroon-born boxer, 25, moved to England at age 10.
Per the BBC, Ngamba said she was almost deported at age 20 when she let authorities know she was still in England.
At 20, Ngamba was on the verge of being deported after attending what she thought was a routine signing-on process to let authorities know she was still in the country. She was arrested before being released the next day.
Ngamba can't return to Cameroon because of her sexuality — homosexuality is a criminal offence in the country.
Great Britain has tried to add her to its team, but citizenship details could not be worked out.
Ngamba became the first-ever refugee boxer to qualify for the Olympics earlier this year.
"The way I see it is that all those setbacks, coming to the UK, my childhood, the paper situation and my boxing, it just makes me stronger mentally and physically," Ngamba told the BBC.
"I believe I can achieve anything that I put my mind to because I've gone through worse with my paper situation."
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