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Nyousha Nakhjiri’s journey to become the first Iranian-born woman to compete in boxing at the Paris 2024 Olympics is captured in the documentary Constant Battles, which premieres this weekend at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival.
The 29-year-old flyweight boxer, who is Canada’s top-ranked athlete in her division, won the 48kg category at the 2025 Canadian boxing national championships last November. Currently, she is representing Canada at the 2026 World Boxing Cup in Foz Do Iguaçu, Brazil. Her ultimate dream remains competing at the Olympic Games.
“It would mean the world to me,” Nakhjiri told CBC Sports. “Who would pass up on the opportunity to represent Canada at the Olympics?”
Though she officially competes for Team Canada, Nakhjiri carries her Iranian heritage with pride. A Canadian citizen training out of Quinit Boxing in Vancouver, she said, “Even though I’m technically representing Team Canada, because unfortunately I don’t have the opportunity to represent Team Iran, I still carry that with me everywhere I go. I feel like in a small way, I’m trying to represent the people of Iran and the women of Iran, especially.”
The film also explores Nakhjiri’s personal struggles with anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as her mother’s traumatic experience fleeing Iran—a country where women are banned from boxing.
Born and raised in Iran, Nakhjiri described herself as a hyperactive child who often played sports and kicked soccer balls, activities frowned upon for girls there. “I would do well in every class, but in Iran we’d have a grade in school for behaviour, and that was always low for me,” she said. “Growing up I slowly started seeing the difference between what women and men can do [in Iran].”
She often played sports with her brother and was sometimes mistaken for a boy—something she says worked in her favor given the restrictions on girls’ sports in Iran. Seeking more freedom, her family immigrated to Canada in 2009.
In her late teens, after receiving an ADHD diagnosis and struggling with mental health, Nakhjiri signed up for her first boxing class. “If we hadn’t moved here, there is absolutely no way I would have ever boxed,” she said in the film. “It’s hard to think that if I went back home to my home country, I wouldn’t even be able to train.”
Boxing became an outlet that helped clear her mind as she battled ADHD. “I didn’t know that I even had ADHD, and I think once I found boxing, it just helped me clear my mind,” she said. “That’s kind of how my obsession with it started.”
Documentary filmmaker Mackenzie Stannard was drawn to Nakhjiri’s story because of its focus on mental health in sport. “Boxing is such a sport that you have to put on this tough exterior and this has been here and seen as invincible,” Stannard told CBC Sports. “Taking some of those layers down is helpful for people to see that this is stuff that everybody deals with.”
Stannard followed Nakhjiri with a camera for over two years, capturing her intense pursuit of Olympic qualification. Although Nakhjiri narrowly missed qualifying for Paris 2024, with a loss in the decisive match, she showed remarkable resilience.
“I was surprised at how quickly Nyousha bounced back from that loss because the first loss that we witnessed was devastating,” Stannard said. “I hope it gives people a reminder to be flexible with your goals and with your dreams… it’s a bit of a cliché, but enjoying the process of something is what’s important and not so much the outcome.”
After competing in the World Boxing Cup in Brazil, Nakhjiri plans to fight at the 2026 Continental Championships this October. Success there would position her for the 2027 World Championships and the 2027 Pan American Games—both key steps toward qualifying for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
For Nakhjiri, stepping onto the world’s biggest sporting stage is about more than medals. “I am so proud of my background and culture and heritage,” she said. “It would be amazing to represent both Canada and Iran.”