Jyothi Yarraji

Happy birthday to India’s greatest sprint hurdler Jyothi Yarraji — national record holder, two-time Asian champion, Asian Games silver medallist, Olympian, and the first Indian woman ever to run the 100m hurdles in under 13 seconds.

Three weeks ago Jyothi won at Oordegem in Belgium in 12.85. Nobody in Indian athletics is better placed to explain what that number means, because she is the person who moved it. The Indian record of 12.78 is hers. The Indian indoor record over 60m hurdles, 8.04, is hers. When she won her second Asian title in Gumi last year she ran 12.96 and set a championship record on the way through. Every hurdler in the country is now measured against a bar she built herself.

The moment that defines her is Hangzhou. In the Asian Games final she was wrongly shown a red card after a rival false-started. India protested, the result was corrected, and Jyothi was awarded the silver medal she had run 12.91 to earn. Her own words afterwards: “I didn’t do a false start. I had to fight for what is right.” That is exactly the material hurdlers are made of — the willingness to keep attacking a barrier that has already knocked you down once.

She works with James Hillier at the Reliance Foundation high performance centre in Bhubaneswar, and she is squarely in the prime years of an event where the great ones tend to arrive late and stay a long time.

పుట్టినరోజు శుభాకాంక్షలు, Jyothi! Wishing you health, joy and a year of clean, fast, ten-barrier runs. 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇮🇳