There are stories of athletes who overcome injuries. There are stories of women who fight stereotypes. And then there is the story of Arundhati Choudhary, who had to survive both at the same time. She grew up in Kota, Rajasthan, a city well known across India for producing IIT aspirants, not international boxers. Her father wanted her to follow the same path as thousands of other students in the city. She was brilliant at mathematics, scored well in school and seemed destined for engineering coaching classes.But Arundhati wanted something completely different. She wanted sport. Years later, after winning national titles and making India proud internationally, she almost lost everything when a fellow male boxer allegedly foul punched her during training, leaving her unconscious with a severe head injury. She spent a month in hospital. Blackouts became a part of her life.
13 Jul 2026 | 13:11
What’s one stereotype about women that you’re tired of hearing?
A few days back, she won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2026 in Glasgow. Her journey is not just about medals. It is about choosing an unconventional dream in India’s coaching capital and refusing to let injuries define her life.
In Kota, everyone spoke about IIT, she wanted to play
She was academically gifted and especially loved mathematics.
For most children growing up in Kota, the future is often imagined inside engineering coaching institutes. According to the Indian Express, Arundhati’s father, Suresh Choudhary wanted exactly that for his daughter. “IIT karna hai. (You must get admitted to IIT). That’s it,” was the message she received whenever she spoke about sports.Ironically, she could have done it. She was academically gifted and especially loved mathematics. But classrooms never gave her the satisfaction she felt on a sports field. “I had almost given up. One day I started crying to my mother and insisted that I wanted to do sports. The feeling of achieving something on the ground is very motivating for me,” she told the Olympic Channel.Initially, Arundhati played basketball. She captained her school team and even competed at the state level. Her father, however, believed team sports offered fewer opportunities for individual recognition. If she wanted to pursue sports seriously, she had to choose an individual discipline.“My father said that you have to pick an individual sport. Boxing struck me at the first instance because that is one sport that would allow me to punch the opposition. I wanted to fight,” she recalled in an interview a few years back.She laughed while recalling the reason. “I used to be a tom-boy in school and if anybody would do any nonsense, I would beat him up.” Her father warned her because of worries. “He warned that I could lose my teeth and my face could get disfigured in boxing.”Her response made him laugh. “I replied that I would do the same to her as well then.” That conversation changed her life.
Kota had thousands of teachers but there was lack of boxing coaches
Choosing boxing turned out to be the easy part. Finding someone who could teach it was much harder. After searching extensively, the family reached Ashok Gautam, who was actually a Wushu and Taekwondo instructor.He admitted he had never coached boxing before. Instead of refusing, he decided to learn. According to Olympics.com, Gautam began studying videos of legends like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, watched instructional clips uploaded by coaches online, and then taught whatever he learned to Arundhati.“My coach worked harder than me,” Arundhati recalled. “He would watch videos of boxing and then come and teach me. Looking at his efforts I got more motivated.” “In the morning I started training at 4:30. Then after coming back from school I would again go on to train. Ek junoon sa tha. It was like a passion.”
She studied only 12 days before her board exams
Balancing school and boxing was never easy. While preparing for Class 10 board exams, she attended the national boxing camp. She managed to study for only 12 days before the exams. Even then, she passed with first division. Soon afterwards, she entered her first junior national championship. She returned home with gold. The medals kept coming. She won gold at the Khelo India Games for three consecutive years, established herself in the domestic circuit and made an immediate impact internationally.
Then came the training session that nearly ended everything
She started suffering frequent blackouts after the head injury.
Just when her career was gathering momentum, tragedy struck. After the Khelo India Games in July 2018, Arundhati returned home for training. According to her, some local male boxers did not approve of girls participating in boxing. “After Khelo India, I went home. There were a few local boxers who were very conservative and did not like girls doing boxing.” What happened next changed her life. “One day during training, one of them hit me so hard that I went unconscious. He was foul punching me. It was a very serious head injury and I had to stay for a month in the hospital,” she recalled in an interview.She said her coach had specifically instructed the boxer not to be aggressive. “Sir told him not to be aggressive and yet when Sir went to answer a phone call he made the most of the opportunity.” The boxer was expelled soon afterwards.But for Arundhati, the consequences stayed much longer.
She would collapse while hitting the punch bag
The injury refused to heal completely. She started suffering frequent blackouts. Sometimes she would lose consciousness during training. Many times, even while practising on the punch bag, she would collapse. The pain was so severe that she seriously considered quitting boxing altogether. “But once again my coach came to my rescue. When medicines stopped working I turned to ayurvedic under his discretion. Gradually I started recovering fully.“Recovery, however, was far from complete. “The pain kept coming back. There would be doctors besides the ring and many times after getting treated in hospital I would step into the ring.”Even while struggling physically, she continued competing. At the 2019 ASBC Youth Asian Championships in Mongolia, she won bronze.
Injuries became part of her career
The head injury was not the only setback. By the time she reached the Commonwealth Games, Arundhati was carrying multiple injuries. According to her father, she had a plate inserted near one wrist after an earlier injury, required treatment for the other wrist, and also had a linear fracture in her heel.Surgery would have meant months away from competition. In Indian boxing, that often means losing your place in the national team. So she continued fighting through the pain.
The girl who refused Kota’s script wrote her own ending
Arundhati Choudhary.
Arundhati Choudhary’s journey is remarkable not simply because she became a Commonwealth Games champion. It is remarkable because almost every chapter of her life demanded that she stop. She was expected to prepare for IIT instead of preparing for fights. She wanted to box in a city where there wasn’t even a boxing coach. She fought through blackouts, recurring pain and multiple fractures.And still, she kept winning.Her greatest victory may not be the gold medal around her neck. It may be the fact that, despite everything that tried to knock her down, she kept getting back up.
