Nikhat Zareen (born 14 June 1996) is an Indian boxer from Telangana. She won the gold medal at the Women’s World Boxing Championships in 2022 and again in 2023, becoming only the second Indian woman, after Mary Kom, to win more than one world title. She also won gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and bronze at the Asian Games. She received the Arjuna Award in 2022.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Nikhat Zareen |
| Born | 14 June 1996, Nizamabad, Telangana, India |
| Age | 30 |
| Sport | Boxing (flyweight and light flyweight) |
| World titles | 52 kg (2022), 50 kg (2023) |
| Parents | Mohammed Jameel Ahmed, Parveen Sultana |
| Other post | Deputy Superintendent of Police, Telangana |
| Honour | Arjuna Award (2022) |
Early Life
Nikhat is the third of four daughters of Mohammed Jameel Ahmed, a former footballer and cricketer who worked for a time in the Gulf. She began as a sprinter. Seeing no girls in the boxing ring at a local sports meet, she asked her father why, and he encouraged her to try. Relatives and neighbours in Nizamabad criticised the family for letting a Muslim girl box in shorts, but her father stood by her. She trained first with him and then at the Sports Authority of India centre in Visakhapatnam.
Career
She won gold at the Junior World Championships in Turkey in 2011, aged 14, and silver at the Youth World Championships in 2014.
A dislocated shoulder in 2017 kept her out for almost a year. In her weight class she was long in the shadow of Mary Kom. In 2019 she wrote to the sports minister asking for a fair trial for the Olympic qualifiers; the trial was held and she lost to Mary Kom, who did not shake her hand afterwards.
In May 2022 she won the 52 kg title at the World Championships in Istanbul, winning every bout by unanimous decision. She took gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham that August. In March 2023 she won the 50 kg world title in New Delhi, beating Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Tam in the final. Her bronze at the Asian Games in Hangzhou secured a place at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she lost in the second round to China’s Wu Yu.
Personal Life
The Telangana government gave her a house site, a cash award and a post as Deputy Superintendent of Police. She has said she wants to be known simply as an Indian athlete and not through her religion.
Awards and Honours
Major Medals
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Nikhat Zareen born?
Nikhat Zareen was born on 14 June 1996 in Nizamabad, Telangana, India and is 30 years old.
Featured image: Nikhat Zareen (right) with Telangana sports minister V. Srinivas Goud after her world championship win, Hyderabad, June 2022. Photo by Batthini Vinay Kumar Goud, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
