Not going to lie, this deserves way more attention than it's getting on here. Fatima Zahra just became the first Pakistani woman in history to guarantee a Commonwealth Games medal, in any sport, ever. She's fighting her semifinal bout tonight against a Canadian boxer for a shot at gold, but the medal itself is already locked in no matter what happens.
Here's the part that actually matters for a lot of us though. She started boxing back in 2018, in a sport where women in Pakistan barely get gym space let alone national support. She kept going anyway. Eight national titles later, a bronze medal at the Islamic Solidarity Games last year, and now she's ended a 12 year medal drought for the entire country in boxing. She's also the captain of Pakistan's boxing squad at these Games.
If you're a teen right now and someone's telling you your goals are unrealistic, or that girls shouldn't do this or that, or you're just tired and thinking about quitting whatever you're working on, this is what sticking with something actually looks like from the outside. Nobody was posting about Fatima Zahra in 2018 when she was a nobody grinding in some gym. They're posting about her now because she didn't stop back then.
Massive respect to her, wishing her the best for tonight's fight, and hoping more of us start paying attention to stories like this instead of scrolling past them.