Mary Kom: Six World Titles and the Record No Other Boxer Holds

Priya Khaitan
Jul 27
3 min read

Updated: Aug 3

Overview

Mary Kom (born 1983) is the only boxer, male or female, to win six World Amateur Boxing Championship gold medals, and the first Indian woman boxer to win an Olympic medal, building her career from a farming family in Manipur with no institutional pathway for women boxers.

Timeline

1983 — Born 1 March in Kangathei village, Churachandpur district, Manipur, to tenant farmers
1998 — Leaves home at 15 to train at the Sports Authority of India academy in Imphal, initially keeping it secret from her father
2001 — Wins silver at the inaugural Women's World Boxing Championships, her first of eight consecutive world medals
2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 — Wins five consecutive World Championship gold medals
2012 — Wins bronze at the London Olympics in the flyweight category, India's first Olympic medal in women's boxing
2014 — Wins gold at the Asian Games, the first Indian woman boxer to do so
2018 — Wins her sixth World Championship gold, tying Cuba's Felix Savon for the most world titles by any boxer, male or female; also wins Commonwealth Games gold
2019 — Wins bronze at the World Championships, extending her record to eight consecutive World Championship medals
2020 — Awarded the Padma Vibhushan

Early Life

The eldest of three children born to jhum (shifting cultivation) farmers in rural Manipur, Mary trained in secret, hiding her boxing ambitions from her father, an ex-wrestler who initially opposed the sport for his daughter. He learned of her progress only after her photo appeared in the newspaper following her state championship win in 2000.

Achievements

Only boxer in history, male or female, to win six World Amateur Boxing Championship gold medals
Won a medal at all eight World Championships she competed in — a unique record in the sport
First Indian woman boxer to win an Olympic medal (bronze, London 2012)
First Indian woman boxer to win gold at both the Asian Games (2014) and Commonwealth Games (2018)

Challenges

Mary Kom built her career in a sport with no institutional framework for women in India, from a state, Manipur, that received little national attention or investment at the time. She also returned to elite competition and won a world title after having children — a comeback widely covered as one of the more remarkable in the sport.

Legacy

Nicknamed "Magnificent Mary," she remains the most decorated boxer, of any gender, in World Championship history, and her career has been credited with raising both the profile of women's boxing in India and of Northeast Indian athletes nationally. Her life was dramatized in the 2014 Bollywood biopic Mary Kom, starring Priyanka Chopra.

"People used to say that boxing is for men and not for women, and I thought I will show them some day." — Mary Kom

Sources

Olympics.com official athlete profile; Grokipedia; Anantam IAS. Note: our previous post stated she won "eight World Championship titles" — this was inaccurate. She holds six World Championship gold medals (the record) and eight total World Championship medals across her career; we've corrected this distinction above.

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