New Delhi: There are good reasons why Jyothi Yarraji calls her recent stint in South Africa the “best training camp” she has been to. For one, the university town of Stellenbosch was a welcome relief from the din at home. Then, she was in some elite company. The 25-year-old trained with Dutch hurdler Nadine Visser who finished fourth at the Paris Olympics (12.43secs) – 12.78secs is Yarraji’s best – and bonded with four-time Olympic medallist Femke Bol.
Yarraji also got to present the Player of the Match award at the SA20 fixture between Joburg Super Kings and MI Cape Town, but it was the track and gym sessions with the Dutch national team that put her in the right mindspace – perhaps even showed her the mirror – while she was still hurting from a below-par show at the Olympics.
“There is no comparison between the way they train and how we approach training. They are extremely focussed and very relaxed. It’s something I wish to learn and implement,” she said. “They focus on three critical components of hurdling – lead, block and finish – individually. Their training is extremely sophisticated.”
Not a mean lifter in the gym, Yarraji was still surprised to see the weights that Dutch girls routinely lifted. She took copious notes of the tips and tricks the Dutch athletes and coaches shared. But the biggest learning, she said, was a life lesson.
“I spent some time with Femke Bol and was blown away by her humility. All the athletes, in fact, were very modest and ready to share their knowledge. They don’t forget where they come from, perhaps there lies the secret of success,” she said.
Specialised training and avoiding injuries are vital to success, aspects Yarraji will focus on as she gets going in the new season. She has already started competitions with three races in France. She opened her season with the 60m hurdles, improving her national record twice within hours while winning at Metting de Nantes Metropole (8.04secs) last month. Yarraji made the final in her next two meets, clocking 8.10secs for fifth at Elite Indoor Track Miramas Meeting and 8.20secs for sixth at Meeting de L’Eure in Val-de-Reuil.
“I have warmed up nicely for the season. The mind and body are feeling great,” said Yarraji, who will compete at the National Games in Dehradun.
While she has the Asian and World Championships this year, the Paris disappointment lingers. Yarraji had backed herself to reach the semis, but she was eliminated in the repechage heat where she clocked 13.17secs to finish fourth and crash out.
Six months on, Yarraji, who had a hip flexor injury three months before the Games, looks at her campaign with objectivity. “I couldn’t deal with the pressure,” she said.
“There were a lot of expectations. I was getting calls and messages from everywhere and all that kind of weighed me down.”
Pressure is not new to Yarraji, who has been competing at the elite, multi-discipline events since 2022. She was part of the Indian contingent at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, and held her nerve to win silver at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games.
“But the Olympic pressure is something else,” she said. “Suddenly, all those Games (CWG and Asiad) seemed so far back. I kept thinking, ‘I want to make the semis,’ all the time and lost focus. In hindsight, it’s all part of the learning curve.”
Yarraji’s spiral began in Finland in May at the Motonet GP Jyvaskyla where she hit the final hurdle, causing an injury to her left hip flexor. She still clocked her personal best (12.78s) but couldn’t finish her next race two days later.
The injury cost her crucial training time, though she competed in India and a couple of events in Poland before heading to Paris. A training time of a little over three weeks in the five months leading to Olympics meant that the critical changes her coach James Hillier had introduced in her technique were never fully honed. These included altering her approach from eight strides to seven and switching to a right-leg start.
“I feel due to my injury, I did not get enough time to get used to those changes, but this cycle will give me enough time to learn. My focus this year will be to stay injury-free.”
