World Athletics Championships: India’s NR Holder Jyothi Yarraji Disappoints In 100m Hurdles

The 23-year-old Jyothi Yarraji clocked a below-par 13.05s to finish seventh in heat no.4 and 29th overall.

Budapest: National record holder 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji failed to qualify for the semifinals of the World Athletics Championships as she finished seventh in her heat in yet another disappointing performance for India on Tuesday.

The 23-year-old Yarraji clocked a below-par 13.05 seconds to finish seventh in heat number four and 29th overall. The first four finishers in each of the five heats and the four other fastest athletes (24 in total) qualified for the semifinals.

The last semifinals qualifier clocked 12.92s. Yarraji was expected to at least qualify for the semifinals, but she failed to live up to the expectations in her first World Championships.

Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Kendra Harrison of USA led the semifinal qualifiers with a world season-leading time of 12.24 seconds. Indian athletes have disappointed so far in the championships.

On the opening day on Saturday, national record holder 3000m steeplechaser Avinash Sable failed to qualify for the final round after finishing a disappointing seventh in his heat race.

Three Indians brought up the rear in the men’s 20km race walk final while young Shaili Singh also failed to make it to the women’s long jump final.

Ajay Kumar Saroj ran his personal best of 3 minutes 38.24 seconds in men’s 1500m heats but that was not enough to qualify for the semifinals, while none of the three Indians in the men’s triple jump — Praveen Chithravel, Eldhose Paul and Abdulla Aboobacker — made it to the final round.

On Sunday, Santhosh Kumar Tamilarasan and Sarvesh Anil Kushare had crashed out in the 400m hurdles heat race and high jump qualification round respectively.