42-year-old record, trucker’s daughter: Vithya Ramraj breaks PT Usha’s mark and rewrites history

India’s Vithja Ramraj celebrates with the national flag after winning bronze in the women’s 400m hurdles at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya. Ramraj clocked a personal best of 54.75 seconds to break PT Usha’s 42-year-old national record of 55.42 seconds, set at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Also pictured is Usha from her competitive days, highlighting the record that Ramraj finally broke. Vithya Ramraj has already made history by equaling PT Usha’s 42-year-old national record and finally breaking it three years later.The 27-year-old Indian hurdler clocked a personal best of 54.75 seconds to claim bronze in the 400m hurdles at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, breaking the national record held by the legendary Usha since August 1984.At the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, Ramraj clocked 55.42 seconds to win the bronze and equal Usha’s mark at the Los Angeles Olympics on August 8, 1984. The record stood for 39 years at the time.Asian Games Full coverage|Medal total|ScheduleNow, in Nagoya, Ramraj has done even better, shaving 0.67 seconds off the old national record en route to her second individual medal at the 2026 Asian Games.Her compatriot Anu Raghavan finished fifth in 55.88 seconds, also registering a personal best.The 26-year-old was part of India’s silver medal-winning 4x400m mixed relay team earlier in the Games, running the anchor leg and producing a strong finish to help India hold on to second place.The medal also adds to Ramraj’s Asian Games record. At the 2023 Hangzhou Games, she won bronze in the women’s 400m hurdles to go with silver medals in the 4x400m relay and medley.

The trucker’s daughter who refused to give up

Vithya grew up in a modest family, her father worked as a truck driver. Her mother enrolled Vithya and her twin sister Nithya, a 110m hurdler, in the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu hostel in Erode. Athletics was not a carefully planned choice.“At a parent-teacher meeting, my PE teacher suggested sports to us. My mother chose athletics because it offered more visibility than team games. A sports hostel also helped because my family could not afford the expenses,” Vithya told the Tech Word News in 2025.After school, Vithya went on to study BBA under sports quota and joined the national camp at NIS Patiala in 2018. But progress was slow. She later moved to Chennai in 2022 while a Covid infection and appendicitis surgery disrupted her preparations for the Tokyo Olympic Trials.“I didn’t get personal training in Patiala, I struggled with food and I didn’t know Hindi. I got Covid while preparing for the Olympic Trials in Tokyo and later had an appendectomy. I had to leave the camp and come back home,” she told the Tech Word News.Her twin brother Nithya, who trained under coach Nehpal Singh Rathore, then helped bring Vithya into the set-up. Until 2022, Vithya was primarily focused on the 400m flat, but Rathore encouraged her to continue in both events and aim for Usha’s record.The twins subsequently made history as the first pair of twins to represent India at the Asian Games. Vithya’s breakthrough in Hangzhou included three medals – a bronze in the 400m hurdles and silver medals in the women’s 4x400m and 4x400m medley relay – while her record-breaking run put her among India’s leading 400m hurdlers.After Hangzhou, the rise of Vithya continued. She represented India at the 2024 Paris Olympics as part of the women’s 4x400m relay before adding another major international podium finish with a bronze in the 400m hurdles at the 2025 Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea.“The same villagers who once asked our parents if they would send us to Chennai for training are now celebrating us,” she told the Tech Word News.