A weight lifted: Cyrille Tchatchet wants to give something back to Birmingham

Cyrille Tchatchet was walking home through the streets of Smethwick in 2016 when he got the call he had been hoping for since he stole out of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with just a pair of shoes and a weightlifting belt to his name.

“It was my solicitor to tell me my application for asylum had been approved,” Tchatchet told the PA news agency. “All of a sudden, I felt like chains had been removed from my hands and legs. I was so happy, and ready to embark on the next stage of my journey.”

Tchatchet’s route to representing England in the men’s 96kg weightlifting category at this month’s Games in his adopted home city represents so much more than the 3,000 miles that separate Birmingham from Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, where he grew up and nurtured his love for the sport.

The 26-year-old has previously revealed to PA the remarkable series of events that saw him leave his hotel room in Glasgow and head to a notorious suicide spot in south-east England where he was “sure” he would have jumped had he not seen a sign for the Samaritans.

Arrested and initially taken to the Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow, Tchatchet was subsequently relocated to a flat in Birmingham, within easy walking distance of many of the venues that will be hosting this summer’s Games, to await news of his application.

In the meantime, he represented the Refugee Team at the Tokyo Olympics, finishing 10th, and following confirmation of his successful application, set about the process of obtaining a UK passport and convincing his sport’s world governing body to rubber-stamp a switch in nationality that would enable him to represent England and Great Britain.

“The main reason I applied for a British passport was to be able to