Double delight for Jyothi, Ajay, Abdulla as they qualify for athletics World Championships | More sports News – Times of India

BANGKOK: It was double delight for India’s gold winning trio of Jyothi Yarraji, Ajay Kumar Saroj and Abdulla Aboobacker as they also booked their berths in the upcoming World Championships as area champions.
“My main aim was the World Championships. So I decided to give it my all. For me it was either gold or nothing. Finishing second or fourth would have made no difference,” Saroj told TOI here.
“I was not in the reckoning to qualify for the Worlds based on my ranking so this was my best chance.I was closely following and monitoring the leaders, even their foot movements, before I made the move,” added Saroj, who is training in Colorado, USA, with coach Scott Simmons.

Aboobacker was 19th in the world rank list behind Praveen Chitravel (12) and Eldhose Paul (18) but now gets a direct entry to the Worlds in Budapest. The jumper said this was a comeback for him after lying low following an impressive run at the Commonwealth Games last year.
“I was tense after two rounds as I was lying seventh. Now, I want to do better than this at the Worlds and Asian Games. Last year, I missed the gold by a centimetre, so all my effort was to hear my national anthem while standing on the podium. I’m a soldier and it’s an honour for me to do the victory lap with the national flag,” said Aboobacker, who is based out of the Airforce station in Jalahalli, Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, Jyothi, who soon got a congratulatory message from IOC member and founder chairperson, Reliance Foundation, Nita Ambani, was upset with the few mistakes she committed that affected her winning time.

“It was a good race and I focused on attacking the first three hurdles. But then I lost balance on the 8th and 9th hurdles,” she said.
Coach James Hillier said but for the rain and a few mistakes, Jyothi would have had the record.
“But not to worry as the gold is most important. Masumi Aoki (bronze winner) had beaten Jyothi at the Asian indoors and today Jyothi beat her.”
After two gruelling days where he competed in 10 events, Tejaswin Shankar was elated to win his first medal in the Asian Championships. The high jumper, who recently moved to decathlon, said he was happy to get closer to the 8000-point mark.
“It was a big challenge for me to do another decathlon in three weeks but I overcame that. This was a great preparatory meet for the Asian Games,” said Shankar.