In 'imperfect' race, Yarraji logs perfect result
James Hillier is a tough coach to please. Barely an hour after his ward Jyothi Yarraji won her maiden Asian Championships title in Bangkok, Hillier was already thinking of evaluation and post-race analysis. "I am happy, of course, but learning never stops. One can always improve," he said.
If one has followed Yarraji's career trajectory, improvement emerges as a steady constant. Having dipped under the 13-second mark towards the end of last season, the 23-year-old hurdler has gone sub 13s five times this year already, her golden run in Bangkok — she clocked 13.09 secs — being only her eighth fastest among 13 starts in 2023.
"It was not a perfect race. The conditions were tricky. It rained during her race and hurdling in rain is tough because rainwater gets into the eyes. Also, the hurdles become slippery. All things considered, we'll take the result," Hillier, who is the athletics director at Reliance Foundation, said.
Fresh from her Inter State triumph less than a month back where she clocked 12.92 seconds, Yarraji entered the competition as a clear favourite. She set the tone with a top finish in heats where she clocked 12.98s and had it not been for rain, Hillier believed Yarraji would have done 12.80s or better.
"It was a slow race, but in normal circumstances, she would have won by 3-4 metres. Her key strength is she relies on process and doesn't think too much about the results. She knows she cannot control how her competitors run, so there's no point in thinking about them. She has grown by leaps and bounds over the past two years," the Englishman said.
"There were a few mistakes she committed. It wasn't really a smooth race. She was quite nervous to begin with. I felt she ran a bit sideways. But the good part is she recovered very well."
The year has seen Yarraji compete in Germany, Netherlands, Poland, and Finland in a 12-day period between May 27-June 7 before she turned up in the sweltering Bhubaneshwar heat last month to win the Inter-States title. In the weeks leading upto the Asian event, Hillier put Yarraji through an intense fitness regimen to help her regain her strength.
"We got a crucial three-week block after the Inter-States where she trained quite hard. This has been a long, tough season for her so far and I could see her fitness waning. So we did some pretty tough drills to get her back to scratch. The week leading up to Bangkok was mostly for rest and recovery. She was the highest-ranked hurdler in the competition, so obviously there was some pressure, but she is learning to cope with expectations really fast," Hillier added.
Yarraji will be in action again on Sunday when she lines up for the 200m. "She is actually a very solid 200m runner and may spring a surprise. She is ranked fifth in 200m, so our target is to finish inside the top four," the coach said.
Hillier and Yarraji's next target is to secure World Championships qualification. As of now, Yarraji's best ratified effort of 12.84s in the qualifying window (Jan 31, 2022 to July 30, 2023) for Worlds doesn't meet the cut (12.78s).
Aboobacker, Saroj win gold
Triple jumper Abdulla Aboobacker and 1500m runner Ajay Kumar Saroj were the other gold medallist of the day. Aboobacker, a Birmingham Commonwealth Games silver medallist, jumped 16.92m to take the top position while Saroj clocked 3:41.51 secs to top his event.
Tejaswin Shankar won the decathlon bronze while Aishwarya Mishra also won a bronze in women’s 400m with a time of 53.07 secs.
India are currently third on the medal tally with six medals (3 gold, 3 bronze) behind Japan (18 medals) and China (7 medals)
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