Jyothika’s endurance and ‹nishing impressed me: Ramesh
From the by-lanes of Tanuku (West Godavari) to the Olympics in Paris, it has been a fabulous journey for Dandi Jyothika Sri.
She, along with Rupal Chaudhary, M.R. Poovamma and Subha Venkatesan, clocked 3:29.35 to nish second behind Jamaican quartet’s 3:38.54 in Bahamas World Athletics Relays early on Monday to qualify for the women’s 4x400m relay at the Games.
The 23-year-old’s career took a turn for good when she moved over to Sports Authority of India Centre (Hyderabad) as a day boarder for better training, facilities and exposure on the advice of her rst coach Vinay Prasad of Andhra, who trained her for three years when she was studying Intermediate at Siddhartha Mahila Kalasala (Vijayawada).
“I was always condent that Jyothika would make it big, especially after she was selected in 400m for the 2015 World School Games in Turkey though she has not won any medal. Initially, Sitaramaiah (PET) in Tanuku trained her and later we moved her to Vijayawada after she nished her Class X,” said her father D. Srinivasa Rao, a businessman.
Later, she was groomed under the Gopi-Mytrah Foundation, mentored by P. Gopi Chand and soon Eenadu-Lakshya started giving her a monthly stipend of ₹15,000 to help her realise her dream.
Winning the 400m gold in the National under-23 meet in New Delhi couple of years ago when she was with SAI coach N. Ramesh proved to be the turning point for Jyothika as that also saw her join the Indian camp for relay runners soon.
“What impressed me the most was her endurance and nishing, especially the way she opens up in the last 40m. She is showing unwavering commitment and has the passion to keep improving with each training session, at the G.M.C. Balayogi Stadium in Gachibowli and now in the national camp,” recalled Ramesh.
“We have great hopes on the women’s relay quartet in the Paris Olympics,” he said.
Sports Bureau
Indian boxers claimed ve gold medals in the youth category — three men and two women — while nine others nished with silver medals at the ASBC Asian Under-22 & Youth boxing championships in Astana on Monday.
Easily done
Brijesh Tamta (48kg) and Aryan Hooda (51kg) registered unanimous 5-0 wins against Tajikistan’s Muminov Muinkhodzha and Kyrgyzstan’s Kamilov Zafarbek in their respective nals.
Meanwhile, Yashwardhan Singh (63.5kg) had to work hard against Gafurov Ruslan of Tajikistan before registering a 4-1 victory.