2023 was a truly memorable year for Indian sport. With so much having happened, ESPN India picks ten images that tell the story of the most stunning moments we witnessed over the year. Our third pick is a moment where Jyothi Yarraji fought for her rights and ended up winning a medal for India.
There she stood, with hands on her hips and a razor-sharp gaze boring into the official. Jyothi Yarraji had just been disqualified from the women's 100m hurdles final at the Asian Games. The biggest race of her career.
She was having none of it, and rightly so. You see, China's Yanni Wu, in lane 4, made a false start, getting off the blocks before the starting gun went off and Jyothi, in lane 5, was second. As the rules state, only the first defaulter is supposed to be disqualified. But for reasons best known to them, the officials showed the red card to Jyothi as well, which meant she was out of the race.
And there was no way Jyothi was letting that go. Nah, not a chance. Not after she had re-written the national record seven times before qualifying for the Asian Games. She was not going to let an officiating error rob her of a shot at her career's biggest medal.
So, she protested. She shrugged her shoulders, raised her hands, and asked questions of the officials. She asked them to explain why she was being ejected from the race. When they refused to reason with her, she in turn refused to budge. She stood her ground, hand on hips and insisted on watching a replay of the false start.
This was something Jyothi was trained to do in such a situation, as her coach James Hillier would later tell ESPN. She knew she had the right to ask to watch a replay and also had the right to run under protest.
At the replay station, the officials tried to convince Jyothi that she had broken the start gun, which was obvious since she had reacted to Wu's movement. Wu pleaded her case, while Jyothi stood firm. Eventually, both Jyothi and Wu were allowed to run with a condition: the officials would decide after the race if either of them would be disqualified.
After what was nearly a 10+ minute break, Jyothi recomposed herself on the starting block. Her body had cooled down in the fracas and she had to bring herself back to competition mode: not an easy ask.
She did not get off to the best start, but dug deep to finish in third place while Wu was second. In the end, though, Wu was disqualified, and Jyothi was awarded silver.