Athletics
Armed with a revised stride-technique, Jyothi Yarraji strives for new personal best
The change is meant to keep her injury free for the season ahead.
Jyothi Yarraji spoke to The Bridge in New Delhi ahead of her departure to South Korea for the Asian Athletics Championships. (Photo credit: Ritu Sejwal/ The Bridge)
New Delhi: At the 2025 Federation Cup in Kochi last month, Jyothi Yarraji spoke passionately about overcoming a freak injury before clocking 13.23s to win the women’s 100m hurdles.
The weeks leading up to that competition were days filled with anxiety for Yarraji.
“I think that is a difficult position for us because we work for this competition for 6 months,” she said in a conversation with The Bridge on Thursday.
Turning up at the Federation Cup was important for Yarraji, with the meet having been declared the official qualification event for the upcoming 26th Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea.
With that hurdle having been cleared, the sprinter is now looking ahead in her quest to defend her 100m hurdles gold in South Korea.
And aiding her cause is a new weapon of sorts – a revised stride technique.
Yarraji explained that she previously ran with an eight-stride pattern and somewhere along the way had changed to a seven-pattern stride.
“Seven-pattern is like the power (flex), and eight-pattern is the frequency adjustor that they used to do,” she explained her trainers’ approach.
But hindering the execution of that technique were her long legs.
“I felt that I have long legs and that’s why I changed to seven, but it’s not working well for me because I got a few pulls, so I've come back to eight only. It’s good now, so everything is going better,” she said with a sigh of relief.
Yarraji has personal best of 12.78s in the women’s 100s hurdles and she knows all too well that she will have to better her performance from Kochi if she is to defend her Asian Athletics Championships.
But gold or defending her title is not on her mind at this stage. Instead, putting in a good performance is.
“My target is below 12.7s. If I really do my personal best over there, I’ll be happy,” she said with a smile.
Yarraji is a part of a 59-member Indian contingent traveling to Gumi, South Korea between May 27 and 31st for the Asian Athletics Championships. She holds a gold medal in the women's 100m hurdles from the previous edition in Bangkok.
