Asian Games-bound athlete Vithya Ramraj on Monday missed the women’s 400m hurdles national record set by legendary PT Usha by the barest of the margins. Vithya clocked the timing of 55.43s at the Indian Grand Prix 5 in Chandigarh as she fell 0.01s seconds short of the national record held by the current Indian Olympic Association President Usha.
Notably, the timing of 55.43s was enough to make the 29-year-old winner of the IGP 5 event. This was also the second-best timing recorded in the season by an Asian athlete - Bahrain's Kemi Adekoya has the best. In the IGP 5 even, Sinchal Kaveramma Ravi came home second with a timing of 58.46s, while Ramandeep Kaur followed in third with 1:01.02.
Notably, PT Usha's national record in women's 400m hurdles stands at 55.42s, a feat she achieved 39 years ago at the 1984 Olympics. This is the second-longest record in Indian athletics. The longest is of the former long-distance runner Shivnath Singh, who set a national record in marathon in 1978.
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