Vithya Ramraj: The Girl Who Ran Past a 42-Year-Old Record

For many years, Indian athletics fans waited at the Asian Games. Then, on the last evening of track events in Nagoya, four women ended the wait.

The record that fell

On Monday, Vithya Ramraj ran the 400m hurdles in 54.75 seconds. It was a personal best and a new national record. The old mark of 55.42 seconds belonged to PT Usha, set at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Vithya finished third. Mariam Kareem of the UAE won gold in a Games record 54.31 seconds. Adelina Zems of Kazakhstan took silver in 54.58. India’s Anu Raghavan was fifth, also with a personal best.

Usha, who now heads the Indian Olympic Association, was at the Games. She congratulated Vithya and said that an athlete’s greatest reward is to see the next generation go beyond the limits she once set.

The relay final

Twenty-four hours later, Vithya was on the track again. India had won no athletics gold so far. The stadium was wet, and less than an hour remained before the track programme ended.

Kiran Pahal ran the first leg and handed over in third place. Poovamma, on her third Asian Games, ran with great patience and stayed just half a step behind Qatar. Prachi Choudhary then kept India in the top two.

Vithya took the baton for the last leg. She was tired from the record run the day before. Near the 300m mark she was unsure whether to attack or wait. She decided to go. She passed China’s Zuo Siyu in the last 200 metres and pulled clear.

India won in 3:29.69. Bahrain took silver in 3:30.21 and China bronze in 3:31.02. Japan was fourth. Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka and Chinese Taipei followed. This was India’s sixth Asian Games gold in this relay, and the first since 2018.

Three medals in one Games

Vithya won gold in the women’s 4x400m relay, silver in the mixed 4x400m relay and bronze in the 400m hurdles. Very few Indians have won three medals at one Asian Games. Lavy Pinto did it in 1951, PT Usha in 1986 and KM Beenamol in 2002. Gulveer Singh also joined this group this year.

Her story

Vithya was born on 20 September 1998 in Coimbatore. She grew up in Meenakshipuram village, near Madukkarai. Her father was a truck driver who raised three daughters. Money was always short.

Her twin sister, Nithya, is also an athlete. Vithya’s mother, Meena, is a homemaker. When the family could not pay for training, she sent Vithya and her twin sister Nithya to a sports hostel in Erode, because she believed athletics would give them a better future. The two girls lived in a sports hostel during school, which gave them a place to train. Sometimes Vithya ran without proper shoes. She kept running even when her feet bled.

She ran sprints until about 2017 and then moved to the 400m hurdles. She won bronze at the 2023 Asian Games. In that Games she matched Usha’s record but did not beat it. She ran in the relay at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Both sisters later got central government jobs, which gave their families some security.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay announced a cash award of Rs 30 lakh for her.

Where Indian women in athletics stand

The picture is good, but it is not perfect.

• Relays are a real strength. Women have won India six golds and five silvers in this relay since 1982. India also took silver in the mixed 4x400m and bronze in the first-ever mixed 4x100m, with Sneha SS and Harita Bhadra in the team.
• Individual stars are rising. Pooja Singh won bronze in the high jump with a clearance of 1.84m.
• The overall count fell. India won 24 athletics medals in Nagoya: one gold, nine silver and 14 bronze. At Hangzhou in 2023 it was 29 medals, including six gold.
• Some gaps remain. India had no runner in the women’s 100m, javelin or marathon. The women’s 4x100m team finished fourth.

Practice and future plans

After the hurdles race she said she was chasing the clock, not the medal. That is the mindset of an athlete who wants to keep improving. Her best time is now 54.75 seconds, and the Asian level is close to 54 seconds. The gap is small. Whether she can close it will be the story of the next few years.

The bigger lesson

Vithya did not come from a big city, a rich family or a famous academy. She came from a truck driver’s home, a hostel bed and a pair of borrowed shoes. Then she beat a record that had stood since 1984.

India does not lack talent. It lacks a system that finds a girl like Vithya early and does not let her run bleeding. Build that system, and there will be many more nights like this one.

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