When Jyothi Yarraji leaps past each hurdle in her bid to reach the finish line, it feels like she is trying to put behind all the struggles that her mother Kumari underwent while working in double shifts as a domestic help and a cleaner at a local hospital in Visakhapatnam. It is her gutsy mother's positive mindset while struggling for sustenance that Yarraji would like to carry when she gets on the starting blocks of her 100m hurdles heats during the Paris Olympics.
Yarraji will become the first Indian to compete in the Olympics 100m hurdle as she made it to the Paris Games through the world ranking quota.
"In the past, I did too much thinking, too much worried because of my family, my personal life and my background but I learnt a lot," Yarraji said in a virtual media interaction facilitated by Reliance Foundation.
"My situation is really bad sometimes. My mom always told me to just keep going forward because we can't stop the present, past and the future.
"She told me 'You work for yourself, whatever the result it will come... we will take it'. My mom will never tell me before a competition to win a medal, to win a gold. She will tell me to go and be healthy and be satisfied with whatever I am doing. That is why I always go forward with a positive mindset."
She also said that having people with positive mindest had also helped her as she tries to "improve my present, without thinking too much of the past and future".
"In the past, there was no great team around me. Now I have lots of positive people, a great team. That is helping me a lot. I always take the positivity with me. I try to change the negative thoughts into positive ones," she said, referring to her support system led by her coach James Hillier, who is
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