Who is Jyothi Yarraji, The Indian Hurdler Competing in Women's 100m Hurdles at Paris Olympics 2024?

Jyothi Yarraji (born 28 August 1999) is an Indian track and field athlete from Andhra Pradesh, specializing in the 100 metre hurdles. She is making her Olympic debut at the Paris Olympics 2024.

She holds the Indian national record in this event, having broken the long-standing record previously held by Anuradha Biswal on 10 May 2022 with a time of 13.23 seconds. Since then, she has broken her own record multiple times. Here is all you need to know about Yarraji:

Early Life and Education

Jyothi hails from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Her father, Suryanarayana, works as a security guard, while her mother is employed as a domestic help.

She completed her schooling at Port High School in Visakhapatnam and pursued higher education at a college affiliated with Acharya Nagarjuna University.

To further her athletic career, she joined the Sports Authority of India hostel in Hyderabad, where she trained for two years under coach Olympian N Ramesh, a recipient of the Dronacharya award.

Later, she moved to Guntur to join the Centre of Excellence and has been training under British coach James Hillier at the Reliance Athletics High-Performance Centre in Bhubaneswar since 2019.

Personal Life

Jyothi grew up in a modest household, with her father, Suryanarayana, working as a private security guard and her mother, Kumari, as a part-time domestic help. Their combined income was less than Rs 18,000 (approximately US$220) per month.

Motivated by the desire to support her family, Jyothi took up athletics during her time at Port High School Krishna in Vizag, where her physical education teacher recognized her potential as a hurdler. Alongside her athletic pursuits, she is also studying for a Bachelor of Arts in History at Acharya Nagarjuna University.

Athletics Career

Jyothi's career highlights include winning a silver medal in the 100m hurdles at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. Initially disqualified for a false start, she was later allowed to compete, and after a review, a Chinese athlete was disqualified, promoting her to silver.

In early 2023, she broke the national record for indoor 60 metres hurdles five times and won silver at the 2023 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Despite facing challenges such as Covid-19 and a back injury that limited her participation in events in 2021, she made a strong comeback in 2022.