By: Soham Shah
September 27 2023
Indian athlete Jyothi Yarraji's old video shared to claim she won gold at ongoing Asian Games
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Posts on X congratulating Yarraji for the Asian Games gold win. (Source: @ashabhosle/X/Modified by Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
The athletics events at the ongoing Asian Games have not begun yet. The viral video is from the Asian Athletic Championships held in July 2023.
Claim ID a3977cf9
What is the claim?
Multiple social media users, including famous Indian playback singer Asha Bhosle, on September 26 shared a video on X (formerly Twitter), claiming that Indian track and field athlete Jyothi Yarraji had won the gold medal at the 100m hurdles event at the ongoing 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. Archive links to some of the posts can be found here, here, and here.
Bhosle shared the video with the caption, "Heartiest congratulations to Yaraaji from Andhra Pradesh for winning the Gold for 100mts hurdles at the Asian Games 🇮🇳🥇."
Posts shared on X and Facebook. (Source:X,Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)
Regional media outlet TV9 Marathi also published a report claiming that Yarraji had won gold at the ongoing Asian Games 2023 and included Bhosle's X post in their story. The archive link of the report can be viewed here.
The report published by TV9 Marathi. (Source: TV9 Marathi/Modified by Logically Facts)
However, athletics events have not started at the Asian Games yet, and the video circulated is old.
What is the truth?
According to the official website of the 19th Asian Games, the first round of the women's 100m hurdles event is slated for September 30, while the final is scheduled for October 1. No athletics event has taken place yet at the Asian Games, with the first one slated for September 29.
Sports journalist Jonathan Selvaraj had also reposted Bhosle's post on X, pointing out that Yarraji's event (100m hurdles event ) had not started yet.
Video posted by Sports Authority of India on July 13, 2023. (Source: X/@Media_SAI/Screengrab)
Further, we found that a part of the viral video was posted on the official X account of the Sports Authority of India on July 13 with the caption, "@JyothiYarraji bags the 1⃣st🥇for 🇮🇳 at the ongoing Asian Athletics Championships 2023 🥳 The #TOPSchemeAthlete clocked a time of 13.09s in Women's 100m Hurdles Event. Meanwhile, her counterpart Nithya Ramaraj clocked 13.55s & finished 4⃣th at the event."
We also noted that the board behind the athletes, visible at the 0:15 timestamp of the viral video, bears the text 'Asian Athletics Championship 2023' and a logo that matches the logo on the Asian Athletics Championship website.
Matching logos on the video and the Asian Athletics Championship 2023 website. (Source: X/ Asian Athletics Championship website/Screenshots)
The Reliance Foundation Youth Sports also debunked the viral claim on its social media handles. It pointed out that Yarraji's video was from July, when she had won a gold medal at the Asian Athletics Championships in Thailand.
On July 13, Yarraji, who hails from India's Andhra Pradesh, won a gold medal in the women's 100m hurdles at the Asian Athletics Championships by clocking a time of 13.09 seconds. Yarraji also holds the national record at 12.82 seconds.
The verdict
We have marked this claim as false as the viral video is old and not from the ongoing 2023 Asian Games.