Tamil Nadu’s Vithya Ramraj breaks P.T. Usha’s record and wins three Asian Games medals

Chennai, 30 September 2026 — Tamil Nadu athlete Vithya Ramraj has come out of the Asian Games athletics programme with a medal of every colour, and with the Indian women’s 400m hurdles record that had stood in P.T. Usha’s name since 1984.

Within six days at Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium she took silver in the mixed 4x400m relay, bronze in the women’s 400m hurdles, and gold in the women’s 4x400m relay. The hurdles clock — 54.75 seconds — is the line that changes the Indian record book.

The 20th Asian Games are being held in Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya, Japan, from 19 September to 4 October 2026. Track and field was scheduled at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium from 24 to 29 September.

Vithya, 28, had already equalled Usha’s 55.42 at the previous Asian Games in Hangzhou, held in 2023, and won bronze there. Nagoya is where she went under that mark.

On 24 September, India finished second in the mixed 4x400m relay in 3:14.46.

The quartet was Manu T.S., M.R. Poovamma, Vishal T.K. and Vithya Ramraj. Published lane orders put Manu on the opening leg, Poovamma on the second, Vishal on the third and Vithya on the anchor. After a slow start that left India well back, Vishal’s leg brought the team into the medal fight. Vithya then passed Vietnam in the closing straight.

Bahrain won in a Games record 3:12.87, with Salwa Eid Naser on the anchor. Vietnam took bronze in 3:14.54, eight-hundredths behind India. India had also finished second in this event at Hangzhou.

The women’s 400m hurdles final was on 28 September.

Vithya crossed in 54.75, third, and took 0.67 seconds off the national record she had shared with Usha. Usha’s 55.42 was set in the 400m hurdles at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, where she finished fourth. Vithya had matched that time at Hangzhou. She had not gone below it until Nagoya.

The podium was tight:

Anu Raghavan’s fifth place was itself a personal best. For Vithya, the bronze is the fastest 400m hurdles race run by an Indian woman.

After the race she said she felt a 54.5 or 54.4 was still in her. Her coach, Nehpal Singh Rathore, has described the longer target as the low-54 range associated with reaching a World Championships final — a different conversation from matching a 1984 national mark.

Union sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya posted the hurdles finish the same day.

On 29 September Vithya was back on the same track for the women’s 4x400m relay.

India’s quartet:

• Kiran Pahal (first leg)
• M.R. Poovamma (second)
• Prachi Choudhary (third)
• Vithya Ramraj (anchor)

They clocked 3:29.69. Bahrain, again with Salwa Eid Naser, took silver in 3:30.21. China was third in 3:31.02.

Kiran handed over in third. Poovamma moved India into the lead. Prachi held it. Vithya kept Bahrain behind on the last lap.

This was India’s only athletics gold at Aichi-Nagoya. India last won the women’s 4x400m at the Asian Games in Jakarta in 2018, then finished second in Hangzhou. P.T. Usha was part of India’s gold-medal quartet in the same event at Seoul in 1986. A day after Vithya replaced Usha’s individual record, she helped add another gold to an event Usha had already marked.

The Athletics Federation of India posted the quartet’s barefoot celebration on the Nagoya track.

The three medals asked for different things: a mixed relay fightback, an individual hurdles final, and an anchor leg the next day. Hangzhou had already given her a hurdles bronze and relay medals. Nagoya showed she could do it again across a full championship week.

India Today posted Vithya with the gold, silver and bronze together on 30 September.

Vithya is a Tamil Nadu athlete. Breaking the longest-standing record in Indian women’s hurdles puts her in a very small group in the state’s sporting history. Her twin sister, Nithya Ramraj, is also an athlete.

The wider Indian women’s 400m group is deeper than it was when Usha set the hurdles mark. Prachi Choudhary’s individual 400m bronze at these Games, and Anu Raghavan’s personal best in the same hurdles final, sit in that picture. Vithya’s week is the sharpest single line in it.

India’s athletics programme at Aichi-Nagoya closed with 24 medals: 1 gold, 9 silver and 14 bronze. Vithya’s relay gold was the only gold in that set.

Gulveer Singh also won three medals: silver in the 10,000m, silver in the 1,500m and bronze in the 5,000m.

The Asian Games were still on when this report was filed. Shooting, archery, boxing and other sports had not finished.

A published medal tracker updated at 11:40 a.m. IST on 30 September listed India eighth, with 9 gold, 21 silver and 27 bronze. The table on that update adds up to 57 medals. The same page’s opening sentence said 56. Treat both as a same-morning snapshot, not a final count.

On that reading, China led, followed by host Japan and South Korea. Golds added on 30 September, after athletics had closed, included the women’s compound archery team (Chikitha Taniparthi, Prithika Pradeep, Jyothi Surekha Vennam), a compound mixed-team gold for Taniparthi and Sahil Jadhav, and a trap mixed-team gold for Kynan Chenai and Neeru Dhanda. Priya Ghanghas took bronze in the women’s 60kg boxing.

Events continue through 4 October. Any total in this article should be read as interim.

The silver showed what Vithya can do on a relay anchor when the team is behind. The bronze made her the fastest Indian woman over 400m hurdles. The gold put her on the leg that held India’s one athletics title of these Games. The 54.75 ended a 42-year wait.

For Tamil Nadu, that is one of the state’s defining sporting weeks of the Games. For Indian athletics, 55.42 is no longer the target. 54.75 is.