It’s an evolving tale of sheer grit, determination, and hard work. Jyoti Yarraji, the daughter of a security guard, is all set to run the race of her life in the 100-metre hurdles at the Paris Olympics 2024 on August 7.
The 24-year-old, 5 ft 9-inch tall athlete from an extremely underprivileged background in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh is the first woman athlete in the highly competitive, track and field events to participate in the event.
That the tall, lanky, and intense-looking Jyoti was destined to make it to the Summer Olympics was borne out of the fact that despite narrowly missing the automatic qualification time by just one-hundredth of a second in the competition in Finland, she made it because of her world ranking.
At the event held in May, Jyoti who is the current national champion missed the automatic selection mark of 12.77 second for the 100 m hurdles by one hundredth of a second. In the run up she also clipped the last hurdle. But, she made it as her world ranking stood at 34. Her best timing is 12.78 sec.
Though Jyothi is far from the Tokyo Olympics (2020) title holder’s timing of 12.37 sec, she is fully charged up to give her best shot. Under her coaches N Ramesh and James Hiller, Jyoti has trained hard to rise to become tough, fighting and charged up, and rearing to go. A slight injury has not dampened her spirits as she trains in Poland with the other Indian athletes now.
After overcoming many real-life hurdles since 2019, Jyoti has been on a roll in the last two years. At the XIX Asian Games in Hangzhou, China in September 2022, she won the Silver medal in a record-breaking time of 12.78 sec. However, she missed a heartbeat when she was initially disqualified.
A few months earlier in July 2023, Jyoti struck gold at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, Thailand. In a more recent event in Teheran (Iran), the Asian Indoor championship, she won the gold. These successes have immensely boosted her spirits.
Jyoti holds several firsts in her decade-long career. She is the first Indian woman to win a medal in the 100 m hurdles in the Asian Games. The first Indian to run sub 13 seconds and remains the country’s fastest 100 m hurdler. She also competes in the 200 m hurdles sometimes.
An inspiring rise
The credit for giving a huge push to Jyoti’s talent should go to the NIS coach and Dronacharya N Ramesh who back in 2016 took her under his tutelage in Hyderabad and trained her at the Gachibowli stadium of the Sports Authority of India.
In a way, Jyothi is a late entrant in the sports arena. She took to running at the age of 15. Her physical education teacher at the Port High School in Vizag, Reddy reposed great confidence in her abilities and put her in training.
Her family was struggling financially with her father, Suryanarayana employed as a security guard in a retail store, and her mother, Yarraji Kumari working as a domestic help. Though her parents did not know much about athletics they encouraged Jyothi.
Jyoti burst onto the national scene in the 2016 national games at Kozhikode in Kerala. Thereafter she rose rapidly to emerge as the national champion and retain it continuously between 2017 and 2023.
With hardly any support from the Andhra Pradesh Government and a non-existent, national standard hurdles track, Jyothi was forced to move out. Luckily for her, the Reliance Sports Foundation based in NAVI Mumbai spotted her talent and took her into their fold. She joined the British coach, James Hillier in 2021 and there has been no looking back since.
Her fortunes rose in 2022 when Jyothi secured the silver medal at the Asian Games in China under dramatic circumstances. The 100 m race began after a controversial false start by a Chinese athlete which almost disqualified her. Truth prevailed in the end and the athlete was disqualified by the judges.
There is no substitute for hard work and international competition, says Jyothi. There has been no dearth for both in the last couple of years during training in Mumbai and now Poland as well as the series of international championships she has taken part and excelled in. She has been plagued by injuries but bounced back quickly with a strict fitness regimen.
Back home in Visakhapatnam, she rues the lack of infrastructure for athletics and also recognition for sports achievers. There is hardly any running track or facilities for training. It’s the surprising support from her family and burning ambition to excel in sport and bring glory to the country that fires up Jyothi as she is set to make a mark in Paris-2024.
| 
