Paris Olympics: GB-based boxers Patrick Brown, Chantelle Reid and Cindy Ngamba qualify for Games

British heavyweight Patrick Brown celebrates clinching a place at the Paris 2024 OlympicsGetty Images

Patrick Brown qualified for the Paris Olympics by winning in the men's heavyweight quarter-finals

British boxers Pat Brown and Chantelle Reid secured a quota spot for the Paris 2024 Olympics on the final day of the world qualification tournament.

Team-mates Owain Harris-Allen and Kiaran MacDonald missed out in Busto Arsizio, Italy, on Monday.

However, Bolton-based Cindy Ngamba, 25, became the first ever boxer in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refugee team to qualify for the Games.

Cameroon-born Ngamba moved to the UK aged 10 and trains with the GB squad.

Ngamba is yet to be granted a visa and UK citizenship, and without a British passport she cannot represent Team GB at the Olympics, but earning one of 70 IOC refugee athlete scholarships kept alive her hope of competing in France this summer.

The middleweight then claimed a stoppage victory over Kazakhstan's Valentina Khalzova in the women's 75kg quarter-finals - enough to book a place in Paris as four Olympic berths were available in that category.

"It's emotional," she said. "I want to thank God, the GB boxing team and the refugee team.

"If it wasn't for the refugee team I would have turned professional or gone on a different journey. They stuck with me and welcomed me like a big family.

"I told myself that I'm not just qualifying for myself but God and the refugee community. It's a big family, there are millions of us out there and I'm just one of those to be given an opportunity."

Ngamba's training partner Reid claimed one of the other middleweight berths with a 5-0 win over Uzbekistan's Aziza Zokirova, and having secured their spots, the four quarter-final winners were not required to box again.

Brown is also looking forward to Paris after claiming a unanimous decision against Poland's Mateusz Bereznicki in the men's heavyweight quarter-finals.

"I've been dreaming of this since seven years of age and I first went to a boxing gym," he said. "It means the world to show kids in amateur boxing clubs that anything is possible."

Featherweight Harris-Allen was later beaten by Brazil's Luiz Oliveira while flyweight MacDonald lost to Kazakhstan's Saken Bibossinov.

They will have one last chance to reach Paris at the second qualification tournament in Bangkok, Thailand, in May.

GB's Charley Davison, Rosie Eccles and Delicious Orie had already clinched qualification at last year's European Games in Poland.

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