India’s First-ever 100-Meter Hurdler At The Olympics, Jyothi Yarraji, Makes History

Jyothi Yarraji is set to make history as the first Indian to compete in the 100m hurdles, and Abha Khatua, a shot putter, has surprisingly made it to the Paris Games by way of world rankings.

The list of athletes who qualified, either by directly meeting the entry requirements or by world ranking quotas, was made public by World Athletics on Tuesday. Athletes who qualified based on world ranking quotas would be chosen to compete by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).

If National Olympic Committees wish to refuse a quota space, they must inform World Athletics by July 4 at midnight. The next highest-ranked competitors in the same events will receive these denied spots from World Athletics from July 4–6, with the final list being released on July 7.

Yarraji is now ranked 34th out of the 40 athletes scheduled to compete in Paris, having narrowly missed the automatic qualification time in Finland. Thanks to her gold-winning performance in the National Inter-State Championships, Khatua improved her ranking and is currently ranked 23rd out of 32 competitors. In the high jump, Sarvesh made it through, but DP Manu is almost out of the competition because of doping.

Kishore Jena and Neeraj Chopra were previously certified. If chosen by the AFI, Jeswin Aldrin might be able to make it, but M Sreeshankar’s injury has eliminated him. Four athletes have reached the automatic qualification threshold in the men’s 20-kilometer race walk; the AFI must now choose three of them.