Jyothi Yarraji. (Credits: X, RF Youth Sports)
Jyothi Yarraji said she doesn’t want to feel pressure and will be focusing on her mother’s advice of moving ‘forward with a positive mindset’.
Jyothi Yarraji will be the first Indian woman ever to compete in the women’s 100m hurdles at the Olympics when she lines up at Paris 2024.
She booked her place in the 33rd Summer Games owing to her ranking after she missed the direct Olympic qualification mark by just 0.1 seconds at the Motonet GP in Finland earlier this year. She did match her personal best of 12.78s, which is the national record.
During an interaction on Wednesday, facilitated by the Reliance Foundation, Jyothi said she is confident about her debut but admitted that there will be pressure.
“I don’t have experience of (competing in the) Olympics but I am confident that it will go well. I have experience of Asian Championships, Asian Games and World Championships and I hope to take my plus points from there to the Olympics. It will be a tough and intense competition in Paris. There will be pressure but I will try to concentrate on my race so that I can reproduce what I had done in the training. I am now focusing more on recovery and meditation so that I remain calm and focused,” Jyothi said.
“In the past, I did too much thinking, too much worried because of my family, my personal life and my background but I learnt a lot.”
“My situation is really bad sometimes. My mom always told me to just keep going forward because we can’t stop the present, past and the future. She told me, ‘You work for yourself, whatever the result, it will come, we will take it’. My mom will never tell me before a competition to win a medal, to win a gold. She will tell me to go and be healthy and be self-satisfied with whatever I am doing. That is why I always go forward with a positive mindset.”
“So, the thing is, now I feel I am going to a war. So I have to be very, very, very good at what I’m doing. I don’t want to tell after the race the mistakes that happened. I want to fix it now. So that’s the reason I’m pushing my limits. Whatever it is possible for this stage and I’m trying to be the best,” she added.
Jyothi is currently training in Poland and will be participating in a race over the weekend before she travels to Paris on July 29.
Running is Like Falling
James Hillier, head of Reliance Foundation’s athletics programme in India, has helped Jyothi with a specific programme, with a focus on three main things – speed, breaking her rhythm, and building it back so fast that she looks like running “somewhat out of control”, to be her best come August.
“So out of the three aspects, ‘out of the control’ is one. So, the thing about women’s hurdles is about speed. The main aspect of hurdles is coasting over the hurdles because they have a specific height. The coach always teaches me, ‘When you’re going to start like it, you have to feel like you (are going) downhill’. So whenever you go downhill, you have to feel like approaching very fast at the hurdles, to attack. So, if I have four repetitions, I will take them step by step so that I won’t be confused,” Jyothi said.
“Not from the start (of the race). I am a rhythmic runner. I am not an aggressive runner. I always like to be a little smooth. So, I am always trying to improve at a gradual rate, one point at a time.”
“I always keep pushing for what I want to do today. I always try to find out my shortcomings, before the coach comes and tells me, ‘Jyothi, you did this and maybe there’s a mistake here’. So, I will only try to confirm it and I will tell to coach, ‘Coach, did I make this mistake’. So, I will improve my knowledge and I will improve for the future what he calls the race pattern. So, that’s what I always do. And it all comes from the coach and the athletes. When I’m going to competitions, I always look for the plus points, whatever the other athletes are doing, what is their great mindset? I’ll take that. I like to learn those positive points,” she added.
