India’s best 100m hurdler by a mile, Jyothi Yarraji has shattered another milestone on her way to the bronze medal at the World University Games in Chengdu, China. This is the country’s first medal at the 100m hurdles event at University Games.
Jyothi, the only woman from the country to record a sub 13-second 100m hurdles, broke the national record for the 9th time with a blistering timing of 12.78s — just .01s slower than the Paris Olympics qualifying mark. Slovakia’s Viktoria Forster won Gold with a timing of 12.72s, while China’s Yanni Wu won silver, clocking 12.76s.
The final saw a very high-quality race with all three medallists clocking their personal bests. Jyothi’s previous timing of 12.82s came at the National Open Athletics Championships in Bengaluru in 2022.
endous form this season, clocking sub-13 races on seven occasions now, including
her Asian Championships gold medal-winning effort just a few weeks ago.
After her Asian triumph, the Andhra athlete had made it clear that she wasn’t satisfied with her performance and would target timings in the sub 12.70s region.
Sprinter Amalan Borgohain, who had been struggling off late, also had a memorable outing at Chengdu as he clocked 20.55s for the bronze medal in 200m. His bronze-winning effort was just 0.03s short of his national record mark set at the Federation Games last year.
Both Amalan and Jyothi train under coach James Hillier, athletics director at Reliance Foundation, who was naturally a happy man after Friday’s results.
“This is another impressive medal-winning performance for Jyothi. Incredibly, it comes with a personal best. What makes the effort even more special, is that it came in the final of global championships. She held her nerve well and very professionally controlled herself through the qualifying rounds to save energy for the final. This is a great performance and another step towards the World Championships and the Asian Games,” said James on Thursday.
In October last year, she became the first woman from the country to run below 13 seconds in 100m hurdles – a feat which was considered almost impossible until recently.
Jyothi has set such lofty standards for herself that a sub-13s run is almost expected of her every time she steps on the field to compete in the hurdles. But that pressure doesn’t affect her anymore.
“I know I will run below 13s but what actually runs on my mind is to not touch the hurdles while racing. My aim is to just perform consistently, I know that records cannot be broken every time,” Jyothi had told The Indian Express at the Inter State meet this year.
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