'I was crying every night': Jyothi Yarraji fights through injury to win gold

Kochi: Victories at the national level are nothing new for Jyothi Yarraji. She stands unrivalled as India’s premier 100m hurdler. However, her gold medalwinning performance at the 28th National Federation Senior Athletics here on Tuesday elicited an unprecedented celebration from her.
The reason behind her emotional response stemmed from the challenges she faced in the lead-up to the championship here. The 25-yearold from Andhra Pradesh encountered a significant setback at the beginning of this month when she sustained a hamstring injury after falling during a training session.

Concerned about worsening the injury and potentially missing both the Federation Cup and Asian Athletics Championship (as the national team selection was based on the Kochi event), Jyothi suspended all her training activities. “I was unable to train. We prepared for the Asian Championships for the last six months and for one mistake, I didn’t want to punish myself.
I was really crying alot and was struggling every night,” she said. “I did the block start training only after reaching Kochi. But I knew that I could manage it,” said Jyothi. She had surpassed the Asian meets qualifying standard on three occasions prior to the National Federation Senior Athletics.