World University Games | Bronze for Jyothi Yarraji and Amlan Borgohain

Jyothi Yarraji & Amlan Borgohain win bronze at World Univ. Games; Jyothi breaks nat'l record. Ajay Kumar & Sathya Tamilarasan also perform well. Vikrant Malik & Anuj Kalera reach javelin final. Susmita Tigga & Bhagyashree Lahanu Navale compete in 3000m steeple chase. Anurag Yadav & Ravi in 5000m heats. India's first medals by female hurdler & male sprinter.

Asian champion Jyothi Yarraji broke her women’s 100m hurdles National record while taking a fighting bronze at the World University Games in Chengdu, China, on Friday night.

A little later, national record holder Amlan Borgohain made it a memorable day for India by picking the men’s 200m bronze with a season-best 20.55s.

Jyothi, the first Indian woman to win a sprint hurdles gold at the Asian Championship in Bangkok recently, also came very close to 2024 Paris Olympics entry standard (12.77s) while clocking 12.78s.

Slovakia’s Viktoria Forster took the gold while China’s Wu Yanni, who was disqualified for the false start at the Asians, took silver and Jyothi put up a strong fight over the last three hurdles for her medal.

Both Jyothi and Amlan are coached by James Hillier at the Reliance Foundation and their medals are the country’s first by a female hurdler and a male sprinter at the Universiade.

Meanwhile Ajay Kumar produced a personal best 65.99m in the men’s hammer throw and finished 11th while Sathya Tamilarasan was seventh in women’s pole vault with 3.60m. Susmita Tigga was 13th in the women’s 3000m steeple chase while her teammate Bhagyashree Lahanu Navale could not finish the event.

Vikrant Malik (71.15m) and Anuj Kalera (69.49) entered the men’s javelin throw final after the qualification round but in the women’s 1500m Laxita Sandilea (4:36.51) and Shivechha Vikas Patil (4:52.00) finished 11th in their respective heats and failed to progress further.