Former Cameroon weightlifter Simplice Ribouem ready to make impact for Australia in Rio

AUSSIE weightlifter Simplice Ribouem lost a staggering 20kg after contracting malaria, which makes his journey just to even qualify for Rio a feat in itself.

Simplice Ribouem can’t wait to represent Australia in Rio.

AUSSIE weightlifter Simplice Ribouem returned to Cameroon with a heavy heart last year but the trip took a physical as well as emotional toll on his body.

Having fled the country in 2006 seeking a better life in Australia after the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Ribouem returned homer following his father’s death.

During the trip Ribouem contracted malaria which almost ended his Rio Olympic dream.

He lost a staggering 20kg – dropping from 94kg to 74kg – had three months off training and didn’t get back in the gym until November, which makes his journey just to even qualify for Rio a feat in itself.

“I was very cold and when I was in hospital they said ‘you’re not going home’ so I was in there for two weeks,” Ribouem said.

Simplice Ribouem with his sons Nathan, 3, and Samuel, 4.

“It knocks you down.”

Ribouem, 33, knew that feeling already.

While in Melbourne for the 2006 Commonwealth Games he made the tough decision that he wasn’t going home.

“It was very hard, if I stay here I had a good opportunity to start a new life,” Ribouem said.

“My dad always said ‘listen to your heart and everything will turn out OK’.”

But it was hard, especially early on, and it’s not a time in his life that Ribouem likes to discuss.

“It makes me sad and I don’t want to bring back bad memories,” he says.

But he does share one story about the time he found himself sleeping on a park bench in Fitzroy, unable to speak English and with nothing more than his bag of clothes.

Simplice Ribouem with his wife Roni, who he calls a constant source of inspiration.

“I was wondering ‘where am I going to go next?’,” Ribouem said.

“One guy offered me a beer but I don’t drink, but I had to make a friend, so I talked to him by hand.”

Slowly things started to get better for Ribouem who found refuge in the Red Cross.

He was granted full citizenship by 2008 and in 2010 represented Australia at the Delhi Commonwealth Games, where he won gold in the men’s 85kg division.

Four years later he almost won gold again in Glasgow but was relegated to silver after a controversial judging decision in favour of PNG’s Steven Kari.

“I don’t know if I will get over that but we have to accept the decision,” he said.

Ribouem now lives in Melbourne with wife Roni and their two boys, Samuel, 4, and Nathan, 3, who are a constant source of inspiration.

“I dropped the bar at a competition and one of my boys said ‘don’t drop the weight daddy’ and gave me a big smile,” Ribouem said.

“So next time when I lifted it I said ‘Samuel are you happy?’ and he said ‘yes I am’.”

His sons won’t be in Rio when Ribouem makes his Olympic debut but he will talk to them on FaceTime. But he’s not so sure he would recommend they follow him into the sport.

“It’s a tough sport, every day you’re lifting 200kg and by the end of the session you find you’ve lifted 1000kg in one day,” he said.

The closest Ribouem has been to an Olympics was in 2004 when he was a reserve for Cameroon and says he is enormously proud to don the green and gold in Rio.

“I’m very excited and very happy to represent Australia,” he said.

“If I see Cameroon people there, I will say ‘don’t be upset, that’s my choice’.”

Originally published as Former Cameroon weightlifter Simplice Ribouem ready to make impact for Australia in Rio