A desperate refugee became so hopeless he considered taking his own life after sleeping rough on a beach and living off biscuits.
But something held him back, and now, five years later, he has completely turned his life around and now works at a community mental health hospital in Harrow.
He is also about to represent the Refugee Olympic Team team at the Tokyo Olympics.
One of five siblings, Cyrille Tchatchet II spent much of his young life working hard on his father’s farm in the western grasslands of Cameroon, helping plant and harvest fruits and vegetables.
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Cyrille says he wants his performance in Tokyo to be a symbol of hope
(Image: PA)
It toughened him up and the hours of backbreaking labour beneath the scorching African sun made his hands, arms and shoulders very strong.
But his mother and father had split up, so Cyrille lived a very different life in the city of on week days. He attended Government Bilingual Practising High School in Yaounde and later started studying for a degree in geography at the University of Yaounde.
One day when he was still just a boy, he saw a picture of a magnificent-looking weightlifter on his cousin’s wall and it turned out to be his uncle.
From that moment Cyrille decided he wanted to be a champion weightlifter.
“The first time I saw that picture I told my mum I wanted to do that and I started following that course,” he tells My London from the London hospital where he currently works as a mental health nurse.
“I’d never been in the gym before and when I got there and saw these massive weights I wanted to run away”.
But something held Cyrille back and he began to train. Slowly building up from using training bars to weights.
Bit by bit he grew stronger and eventually stared to compete at local and then national level. Things took off pretty quickly after that and aged just 19, Cyrille travelled all the way to Scotland in 2014 to compete in the Commonwealth Games.
Cyrille Tchatchet II competing in the mens 85kg weightlifting at the Clyde Auditorium during day five of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games on July 28, 2014 (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
But, like many young people who find success very quickly, things suddenly went wrong. Cyrille finds it too tough to talk about, but despite coming fifth in the competition he was forced to flee the athlete’s village in confusion and fear.
Penniless and alone, somehow he made his way to the south coast and ended up in Brighton. Sleeping on beaches and living off dry biscuits – which he says he’s still addicted to – Cyrille hit rock bottom.
“People have a different perception of the police in Cameroon,” he says. “So I didn’t turn myself in to them, but now I know that’s what I should have done.
“I felt useless because one minute I was in this amazing competition and next minute I was on the streets, not having a bed or anywhere to sleep. It felt sad and I was quite scared and just didn’t know what to do.
“One day I just woke up and had no hope and thought I might as well just end it all.
“I was just stood there looking over the edge. I was thinking, ‘I’m going to be gone now and I’m hoping that will be it.'”
When asked what pulled him back, Cyrille says: “I suddenly saw a sign for the Samaritans right there and I called them. They started talking to me who called the police.
“I was a bit scared as in Cameroon the police might just pull a gun out on you, but here they started talking to me and convincing me, and eventually I jumped back over the fence.”
“If it hadn’t been for the Samaritans I would have done it. The sign was captivating,” he admits.
But Cyrille’s ordeal was not done yet.
Athletes Paula Pareto, Kento Momota, Elena Galiabovitch, Cyrille Tchatchet II, Mehdi Essadiq and Paola Egonu carry the Olympic flag during the Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on July 23, 2021 in Tokyo. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Police found his visa had expired and he had lost his passport. The only identity he had with him was his Commonwealth Games badge.
Almost incredibly for someone in his situation he was arrested and put in a cell after having his fingerprints training.
“It was like being in the movies,” he says.
He was swiftly seen by immigration officials and sent to the Dover immigration centre before later being transferred to Heathrow and finally to a hostel for asylum seekers in Birmingham. This all alone and at just 19 years of age.
Heartbreakingly his asylum application was rejected, but it was here that he took the first brave steps in rebuilding is life.
He started training with the weightlifting club at Birmingham University where he’d had signed up to train as a nurse and later at the Warley Weighlifting club, building up his strength again and somehow getting enough food on his £36 per week subsistence payment – asylum seekers cannot legally work in the UK.
“It was better than living on the beach,” he says. “I was just about able to get enough food living off chicken and potatoes.”
‘I want to send out a message of hope’
He started to get his confidence back and competed in national and regional competitions and in a stroke of good fortune just when he needed it, Cyrille was granted asylum after his court case had initially been postponed three times.
It was a mixed blessing. He says he ideally would have wanted to go back to Cameroon but it just wouldn’t have been safe for him or his family to do so.
“I felt safe now and I could start to think about going back to school and about sorting things out,” he says.
“I got into the right university at Middlesex and got a coach and lots of good team mates and I stated breaking records.”
At the same time his career was on the up as he graduated as a nurse and started work at a medium secure mental health unit where his experiences of knowing how life can go so wrong started to come in very handy.
He’d do 7.30am to 9.30pm shifts before going to private gyms to train. It was an exhausting routine.
Then he moved to a community mental health hospital in Harrow and this allowed him to train more with shorter working shifts.
“It helps to understand where people are coming from. If you’ve been at the lowest point, it helps to be able to understand patients who are very high risk or suicidal,” he says.
Now in the crowning moment of his career he’s flown out to Tokyo with 56 other members of the refugee team to take part in the Olympics Games.
It’s only the second time a refugee team, has been entered into the games but Cyrille is passionate about what it means.
“To be chosen to represent displaced people from around the world is something I will never forget,” he says.
“I want to send out a message of hope when I’m competing, that it’s possible to come from the very lowest point back to the top. That you could have run away from war, survived by eating biscuits and still get to a point where you can succeed.”
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And what of his chances of getting a medal?
“The competition is going to be very tough and I want to be realistic,” he says modestly. “It’s my first time on the platform in seven years but I want to hit my personal best.
“I don’t really have a life and I can’t go out and drink, I have to sacrifice the pleasures of life and I’m not so good with the diet,” he laughs.
But his family will be watching avidly from Cameroon when he takes to the platform on July 29.
“They are my biggest fans,” he says.
So will the staff at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust where he works.
At just 25-years-old Cyrille has gone through more than many of us will experience in a lifetime, but maybe that will help him take the weight of the world on his shoulders when he steps up to the platform in Tokyo.
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