Fatima Zahra is from Sargodha. She started boxing in 2018, after watching a film about Mary Kom.
Her family did not want her to do it.
The argument at home, and the one who took her side
The resistance came from inside the house first, which is the part of these stories that usually gets left out. Her father had been a sportsman himself and backed her, and the rest of the family came round later, once the results started.
Pakistan’s women’s boxing team only began competing internationally in 2016. She took the sport up two years after that, into a setup with almost nothing behind it.
Eight national titles, then the ones that counted abroad
Between 2021 and 2025 she won eight consecutive national titles and went unbeaten in domestic championship finals. She came up through Punjab Boxing, works with the coach Raheel, and represents the Pakistan Army, which is where the structured training and the facilities came from.
In 2025 she took bronze at the Islamic Solidarity Games in Riyadh, the first Pakistani woman to win a boxing medal at a major international multi sport event.
Glasgow, 2026
At the Commonwealth Games she beat New Zealand’s Jordan Wilson 5-0 on a unanimous decision in the quarter final at 60kg. That result guaranteed the medal.
She lost the semi final to Canada and took bronze. First Pakistani woman to win a Commonwealth Games boxing medal.
She is 22. They call her the Honey Boxer.
Most of what she talks about publicly is not the medals. It is other girls in Sargodha getting into a boxing club.
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