Yarraji shines with gold in women's 100m hurdles on penultimate day of Fed Cup Athletics

She further improved the meet record to 12.89 seconds on her way to winning gold on Wednesday.She also bettered the qualification standard of 13.63 seconds set by the Athletics Federation of India, for the Asian Championships to be held in Bangkok from July 12-16.Tamil Nadus R Nithya Ramraj was a distant second with a time of 13.44 seconds, while Sapna Kumari of Jharkhand was third with 13.58 seconds.

Jyothi Yarraji won the women’s 100m hurdles gold with ease and bettered her own meet record on the penultimate day of the Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championships here on Wednesday.

Yarraji, representing Andhra Pradesh, had set a meet record (13.18 secs) in the heats of women’s 100m hurdles on Tuesday. She further improved the meet record to 12.89 seconds on her way to winning gold on Wednesday.

She also bettered the qualification standard of 13.63 seconds set by the Athletics Federation of India, for the Asian Championships to be held in Bangkok from July 12-16.

Tamil Nadu's R Nithya Ramraj was a distant second with a time of 13.44 seconds, while Sapna Kumari of Jharkhand was third with 13.58 seconds. As expected, the men's 110m hurdles gold went to Maharashtra's Tejas Ashok Shirse. He was far ahead of his competitors, clocking 13.72 seconds.

Punjab's Twinkle will be one to watch in the final of women’s 800m scheduled for Thursday. In her heat on Wednesday, she clocked 2:05.39 to breach the Asian qualifying mark of 2:05.74 seconds.

On the men’s side, only two athletes posted a time below 1:50 in the 800m heats.

While Ankesh Chaudhary of Himachal Pradesh clocked 1:49.73 seconds in his heat, Anu Kumar of Uttarakhand clocked 1:49.93 seconds.