Ayushree Banerjee ’s Bold Leap to Kickboxing Glory
This narrative is an adoption from an article by Subharup Das Sharma titled “After Asian Kickboxing Championship bronze, Kolkata’s Ayushree battles for India against many odds” published at the telegraph on 1st of November 2024 based on Ayushree Banerjee The link to the original article is shared at the end.
The morning air in Cambodia hung thick, as if even it could sense the tension brimming in the ring where Ayushree Banerjee was about to face her opponent. At just 19, the kickboxer from Naktala in Kolkata wasn’t simply squaring up for a bout; she was out to prove that every tough choice she’d made to get here was spot on.
Ayushree’s journey to the international stage wasn’t exactly your everyday success story. Just months before, she’d made the bold leap of leaving behind a degree in Electrical Engineering at Jadavpur University, tossing aside the security of future paychecks for the somewhat less-than-predictable life of a professional kickboxer. To some, it might have seemed a bit of a mad move, but Ayushree Banerjee knew that sports were her lifeblood, not some casual hobby she could leave behind. “It was my life, my everything,” she declared, her voice calm yet unshakeably determined.
The gamble, as it turned out, paid off beautifully in Cambodia. She thrashed her opponent in the quarter-final with a solid 3-0, bagging India’s first-ever medal in the women’s 48kg ring event at the Asian Kickboxing Championship. Although she narrowly lost her semi-final bout to a three-time World Champion, the bronze medal was a monumental achievement — especially considering she’d only taken up the sport 18 months prior.
But this wasn’t where Ayushree’s sporting tale began. If you trace her steps back, you’d find her not in a ring but a swimming pool, collecting medals in freestyle and backstroke at national competitions between 2016 and 2019. She was even edging close to being a top-notch swimmer, with her best times in the 50m freestyle at a lightning 28.47 seconds, and a silver medal from Junior Nationals in 2019. But life, as it often does, threw her a curveball with the COVID-19 pandemic and financial difficulties, forcing her to leave the poolside dreams behind.
From there, it was a short hop to martial arts, where she first made her mark in grappling, becoming a two-time GFI Grappling National Champion before finding her true passion in kickboxing. It wasn’t exactly a breeze. Unlike swimming, where buoyancy’s on your side, here you’re battling gravity with every punch and kick, and the physical demands are entirely different. But if it was tough, Ayushree Banerjee was tougher.
Fast-forward to today, and you’d find her following a punishing schedule that would make even the hardiest of athletes think twice. Her days start at the crack of dawn with a gruelling two-hour roadwork session, only to jump right back in during the evening for four hours of technical training, sparring, bagwork, and padding. And to top it off, she also spends a couple of hours coaching younger athletes to help fund her own training.
Recently, she and her coach, Ishan Das, opened a martial arts gym in Naktala, fittingly called God of Athletes. The goal isn’t just to train fighters but to build something bigger — a local fight promotion company, giving Indian fighters the opportunity to make a living from their sport, much like Thailand’s thriving combat scene.
Coach Ishan Das, it seems, is much more than a coach; he’s the steady rock at her side, both emotionally and financially, fuelling her dream with his unwavering faith in her. “She is the future world champion,” he says with a confidence that speaks volumes. And it’s no small thing, either, given Ayushree’s personal life. Raised largely by her grandmother after a strained relationship between her parents, she’s learned resilience from an early age. Her father, formerly a graphic designer, is currently unemployed, and her bond with her parents is tenuous at best.
But for Ayushree Banerjee, every obstacle is just one more reason to push harder. She has her eyes firmly set on becoming the first Indian woman to medal at the 2025 World Championship in Abu Dhabi, and her ambitions stretch far beyond that. She’s planning to turn professional within two years, dreaming of titles at Glory or One Championship, and a roadmap that includes the Turkish Open 2025, Asian Kickboxing Championship 2026, Asian Indoor Games 2026, and World Games 2026.
For young athletes looking to break into unconventional sports, Ayushree’s advice is pure gold dust: “Keep hustling. If there is a will, there will be a way. It is going to be tough, but that is how you become great. Train so hard that you become unstoppable.”
In the end, Ayushree Banerjee ’s story is about more than just kicking and punching her way to medals. It’s a tale of grit, of a young woman daring to throw the dice on herself, of fighting for a place in a world where the odds weren’t always in her favour. And if her past is anything to go by, she’s only just begun to show us what she’s truly made of.
To read the original article click HERE.
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