Ruqsana Begum

Ruqsana Begum is a highly respected professional kickboxer and boxer, best known for becoming the British and European Kickboxing and Muay Thai Champion. She is the first British woman to win world titles in both Muay Thai and Boxing. With over 20 years of fighting experience behind her, she has achieved great success throughout her career, and is now recognised as one of the ‘Young British Muslim Millennials Changing the World’. Admired for her remarkable sporting abilities, Ruqsana has published the best-selling book, Born Fighter, which was shortlisted for the 2020 William Hill Sports Book of the Year. 

After beginning kickboxing classes in college, Ruqsana began fighting professionally in 2008. Entering the boxing ring with a successful fight, she won a bronze medal at the World Amateur Kickboxing Championships and continued to build upon her career by defeating Paige Farrington to win the British Muay Thai Atomweight Kickboxing Championship Professional title. In 2011, Ruqsana won a gold medal at the European Club Cup Amateur Muay Thai Championship. In 2016, she took the World Kickboxing-Muay Thai Association title, making the switch to professional boxing not long after. In 2023, she became the Intercontinental Champion in professional boxing in Dhaka. In June 2025, Ruqsana became the first British female fighter to win titles in two different combat sports. She secured the WBU World Boxing title in the Flyweight Category with a tour de force display of elite skill. Now, she is committed to becoming the first female to achieve World Championship titles in Muay Thai-Kickboxing and Boxing, having been signed by former world champion David Hayne. 

A proud advocate for inclusivity in sports, Ruqsana has created her own line of sports hijabs, having first been inspired when she saw a sprinter struggle to wear a headscarf at the 2006 Asian Games. Alongside this, she was previously a boxing and Muay Thai coach for Fight for Peace, a charity which uses boxing as a prevention and rehabilitation model to confront the problem of child and youth participation in crime, gangs, and gun violence within disadvantaged communities. A respected figure throughout the community, Ruqsana is the founder of Embrace, a boxing club for women run by women, and produces a clothing line titled 'Embrace Your True Self'. She has met Queen Elizabeth II, was an Olympic Torchbearer, and was voted number one in the British Power List. In 2020, Ruqsana published her debut book ‘Born Fighter', which retells her journey to success throughout the sporting industry and won recognition as The Telegraph's Sports Autobiography of the Year, Sports Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and Sports Book of the 21st Century. She recently made her debut as an actor, featuring in the 2025 film 'Tramp', in which she plays Adriana Al, an MMA fighter.

A testament to her illustrious career, she has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout her career, including being awarded Sports Personality of the Year, the Asian Achievers Awards, the UK Sport Inspirational Performance of the Year award at the British Ethnic Diversity Sports Awards, and named as one of the Young British Muslim Millennials Changing the World by The Asian Today. An inspiration to audiences globally, Ruqsana has worked with numerous global brands, including Adidas, Gymshark, Clinique, Selfridges, Karen Millen, and more.