Vithya Ramraj races mere 0.01 second shy of PT Usha’s LA Olympics record

R. Vithya Ramraj, the 24-year-old hurdler from Tamil Nadu, created ripples in Indian athletics on Monday, 11 September.

Winning the gold at the Indian Grand Prix, she came agonisingly close to matching former 'golden girl' PT Usha’s 39-year-old national record in the 400m hurdles, set at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Vithya clocked 55.43 sec, a mere hundredth of a second (0.01 second) short of the legendary Usha’s best when she finished fourth. 

Usha’s effort remains one of the three best achievements of Indian athletes at the Olympics, alongside Milkha Singh’s fourth spot in the 400m in 1960, in Rome, and much more recently javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra writing history at the Tokyo 2020.    

Incidentally, Usha’s is the second-longest surviving national record in India. Shivnath Singh’s national record in the marathon, set in 1978, is the oldest one. 

“I was a bit slow in my first 200m and then picked up speed,” Vithya told a news agency after her golden finish at the Indian Grand Prix in Chandigarh. “If I had run faster in the first 200m, I would have broken the national record today itself. 

“But the Asian Games is coming up (in Hangzhou, China) and I will try to break the national record there,” she added.

Earlier on Sunday, 10 September, Vithya won the 400m flat with her personal best of 52.40s. 

Vithya’s effort has been the latest in a series of rousing performances by Indian athletes over the past month, which saw a young Indian quartet finishing fifth in the 4 x 400 metres relay at the World Athletics championship in Budapest, where two more Indian throwers — D. Manu and Gaurav Jena — qualified for the javelin final alongside gold medallist Chopra.  

Vithya’s time that won the women’s 400m hurdles is also her personal best and the second-best by an Asian this year. Bahrain’s Kemi Adekoya, the 2014 Asian Games champion, has Asia’s best time of 53.09s in 2023.

Sinchal Kaveramma Ravi, the other Asian Games-bound 400m hurdler, clocked 58.46s to finish second and was followed by Ramandeep Kaur, who crossed the finish line in 1:01.02.

The Indian GP 5 2023 was also the last chance for India’s 4x100 men’s and women’s relay teams to make the cut for the Asian Games by breaching the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) entry standard.