"Every athlete dreams to go to the Olympics" - Paris-bound Jyothi Yarraji

Asian athletics champion Jyothi Yarraji made the Paris 2024 Olympics quota for India through her world ranking. She is set to be the first Indian 100m hurdler at the Olympics after World Athletics published the list of athletes who made the cut via the world ranking quota.

In a conversation with the Sports Authority of India (SAI), Jyothi Yarraji expressed her excitement about traveling to Paris for the event.

"I think for every athlete it will be a great experience and every athlete dreams to go to the Olympics 100%. So, I am pretty happy and I am great to be there and I hopefully do my personal best in Olympics," she said in a video released by the SAI on Instagram.

Yarraji ran 12.78 seconds in a Finland event in May, just one-hundredth of a second outside the automatic qualification time of 12.77 seconds. Therefore, she was unable to qualify directly for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

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Jyothi Yarraji happy to qualify via world rankings

According to the World Ranking quota list published by the World Athletics, Jyothi Yarraji is in the 34th position. A total of 40 athletes are set to take part in the 100m hurdle event in Paris.

The Indian athlete missed out on direct qualification but eventually secured the quota. Jyothi claimed that athletes work hard to hit the qualification mark and make many sacrifices for the same. She was disappointed to not achieve the direct qualification but is happy to go through via the rankings.

"I want to hit the qualification that is the reason we are working this hard and we are sacrificing lots of things and we are leaving our country and going to other countries and participating but my bad time I can say that I missed my Olympics qualification because I hit the last hurdle and I missed some balance but through ranking also I will be happy to go," she stated.

Having qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics, she will now be keen to put her best performance and bring home a medal. However, with numerous athletes participating from all over the world at the mega-event, the pressure to perform will be high.

Jyothi Yarraji acknowledged this pressure but said that she would take it as a blessing.

"100% it (pressure) will be because lots of people are watching me and they are hoping for me to do my best but I am taking it as a blessing because whatever I am doing every moment I want to do with confidence and (be) great inspiration to the other athletes also," she concluded.

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