Mumbai: Young woman hurdler Jyothi Yarraji, who was conferred with the prestigious Arjuna award earlier this month, started her 2025 season in scintillating fashion by rewriting the 60m hurdles national record, which already stood in her name, en route to a top place finish at the ‘Meeting de Nantes Metropole’ in Nantes, France on Saturday.
Jyothi, whose previous best at this distance was 8.12s, clocked a time of 8.07s in the heats, where she finished third, before winning the final by further improving her timing to 8.04s, remarkably improving her personal best twice in the space of a day.
Fellow Reliance Foundation athlete Tejas Shirse, who was coming fresh off a national record in the men’s 60m hurdles event at the CMCM Luxembourg Indoor Meeting, matched his personal best of 7.65s in the heats.
Later, he clocked a time of 7.68s in the final to finish third in his event, also starting the season on a positive note, the Reliance Foundation informed in a release here on Saturday.
Jyothi and Tejas are currently on an overseas exposure tour in Europe with the hurdler from Andhra Pradesh having trained with the Netherlands team in South Africa ahead of her first competition of the year.
Both of them will be in action in the National Games next month in Uttarakhand. Jyothi and Tejas are already the national record holders in the 100m hurdles and 110m hurdles events respectively.
(IANS)
