India’s best 100m hurdler by a mile, Jyothi Yarraji has shattered another milestone on her way to the bronze medal at the World University Games in Chengdu, China. This is the country’s first medal at the 100m hurdles event at University Games.

Jyothi, the only woman from the country to record a sub 13-second 100m hurdles, broke the national record for the 9th time with a blistering timing of 12.78s — just .01s slower than the Paris Olympics qualifying mark. Slovakia’s Viktoria Forster won Gold with a timing of 12.72s, while China’s Yanni Wu won silver, clocking 12.76s.

The final saw a very high-quality race with all three medalists clocking their personal bests. Jyothi’s previous timing of 12.82s came at the National Open Athletics Championships in Bengaluru in 2022. Jyothi has been in tremendous form this season, clocking sub-13 races on seven occasions now, including her Asian Championships gold medal-winning effort just a few weeks ago. After her Asian triumph, the Andhra athlete had made it clear that she wasn’t satisfied with her performance and would target timings in the sub 12.70s region.

Sprinter Amalan Borgohain, who had been struggling off late, also had a memorable outing at Chengdu as he clocked 20.55s for the bronze medal in 200m. His bronze-winning effort was just 0.03s short of his national record mark set at the Federation Games last year.

Both Amalan and Jyothi train under coach James Hillier, athletics director at Reliance Foundation, who was naturally a happy man after Friday’s results.