Exactly a year after a serious knee injury threatened to derail her career, India's premier 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji announced her return in emphatic fashion, clocking 12.99 seconds to win gold, dip below the 13-second mark and qualify for the Asian Games.
The comeback, however, wasn't just emotional for the national record holder. It was equally significant for her coach James Hillier, Athletics Director at Reliance Foundation, who admitted he "fell apart" when she suffered the injury last year.
"From the day I got injured, he was worried about me. I kept telling him, 'It's okay coach, I will come back.' He was in Europe then and felt bad that he couldn't be here," Yarraji said after Wednesday's race, according to The Times of India (TOI).
Hillier, who has coached Yarraji since July 2021, said the hurdler's resilience helped both of them navigate the difficult recovery.
"Jyothi has had to dig incredibly deep through this process. I can only admire her resilience. In many ways, she was stronger than I was when the injury happened. I fell apart, but she was the one reassuring me that she would be fine and that she would come back stronger," he told TOI.
He added that while athletes can recover most of their fitness relatively quickly after such injuries, regaining the final 20% is often the hardest part as training intensity increases.
Yarraji returned to training in January but her comeback was delayed further by a series of setbacks, including quad, knee and hamstring injuries. Despite those hurdles, she made an immediate impact in her first competitive outing.
Reflecting on the past year, the 26-year-old said watching competitions from the sidelines was one of the toughest phases of her career.
"Sitting in my room and watching all the action unfold was extremely painful. I never expected an injury like this, but it happened out of nowhere and I had to deal with it," she told TOI.
She also had a message for rivals who believed a new champion had emerged during her absence.
"I saw on social media someone after a recent victory say that a new hurdles queen had arrived. But let me tell you, I'm not going to give that title away so easily. You'll have to work very hard for it. Congratulations to whoever won the last competition, but now that I'm back, I'm ready to fight for it with everything I have," she said.
Although she also competed in the 200 metres, Yarraji said her focus remained on the hurdles. Despite winning in 12.99 seconds, she revealed she had expected an even faster time.
"To be honest, I was expecting an even better time. I felt really good and was hoping to run around 12. 60s. But going below 13 seconds is special in its own way. I had been praying every day for a comeback like this," she told TOI.
With the Asian Games now firmly in her sights, Yarraji believes the biggest improvement isn't physical but mental.
"Physically, I don't know if I'm stronger than before, but mentally I am ten times stronger. That's what helped me come back and run 12.99 in my first race after such a long break," she said, crediting her coaches and support staff for helping her return to competition.
(With inputs from TOI)
