42-year-old record broken: Trucker’s daughter Vithya Ramraj rewrites history
Vithya Ramraj broke PT Usha’s 42-year-old national record in the women’s 400m hurdles, clocking a personal best 54.75 seconds to win bronze at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya. The Indian hurdler had equalled Usha’s 55.42-second mark at Hangzhou in 2023. A trucker’s daughter from Coimbatore, Ramraj has since represented India at the Paris Olympics and won another bronze at the 2025 Asian…
Aichi-Nagoya, Japan witnessed a historic moment on September 28, as Indian athlete Vithya Ramraj broke the 42-year-old national record in the women’s 400m hurdles event at the Asian Games 2026. Ramraj, clocking a personal best of 54.75 seconds, claimed the bronze medal by clearing all 10 hurdles in the final. This performance surpassed the previous record set by legendary athlete PT Usha in 1984 with a time of 55.42 seconds.
Vithya's achievement follows her earlier equalization of the same mark in 2023, making her the first Indian to break the longstanding record. Her accomplishment comes nearly four decades after Usha established the benchmark. Competing against fellow athletes Mariam Kareem of the UAE, who won the gold with a Games record time of 54.31 seconds, and Kazakhstan’s Adelina Zems, who took silver after clocking 54.58 seconds, Vithya's bronze medal marks a significant improvement on her previous best.
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