For Vithya Ramraj, the 54.75-second clocking at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games was not the finish line. It was the starting point for a bigger target. After finally breaking P. T. Usha’s 42-year-old national record in the women’s 400m hurdles, the Indian athlete is now chasing the next barrier: 54 seconds.
The 28-year-old emerged as one of India’s standout performers at the 2026 Asian Games, returning from Nagoya with three medals and a place in the history books. Her bronze in the 400m hurdles came with a national record of 54.75 seconds, taking 0.67 seconds off the previous benchmark of 55.42 seconds set by Usha at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. World Athletics lists 54.75 as Ramraj’s current personal best and national record. Yet, despite the attention surrounding her performance, Ramraj remains surprisingly detached from the spotlight.
“In the last Asian Games (2023) in Hangzhou, I won three medals. I don’t know why I became popular this time,” she told a select gathering at a function organised by the Anna Nagar outlet of jewellery makers Tanishq on Wednesday. The numbers, however, explain the sudden surge in attention.
Ramraj played a crucial role in India’s women’s 4x400m relay gold at the Asian Games, where the Indian quartet clocked 3:29.69 to finish ahead of Bahrain and China. She also helped India win silver in the mixed 4x400m relay before producing the defining individual performance of her campaign in the 400m hurdles. Her 54.75 seconds in Nagoya was particularly significant because Ramraj had already equalled Usha’s record at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou. Three years later, she finally moved beyond the mark that had remained untouched for more than four decades. While the record brought recognition, Ramraj and her coach Nehpal Singh are already looking beyond it.
“My coach is not happy with my timing in the 400m hurdles at the Games in Japan. In India, I am not pushed enough. Hence, I am not able to go sub-54. I will work harder and try to achieve the timing my coach has demanded of me,” said Vithya. That ambition places the focus firmly on the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing. The global championships are scheduled from September 10 to 19, 2027, with more than 2,000 athletes expected to compete. Ramraj has yet to make her World Championships debut, making qualification and progression towards the global stage the next major chapter of her career.
“I want Vithya to make it to the final. That’s the target,” said Nehpal. The journey to this point has not been built around ideal conditions. Ramraj recalled difficult years in which accommodation and travel were far from comfortable, experiences that have shaped her ability to block out distractions and focus on competition. “I’ve lived in a room with 20 members. We lived like that for six years. There were no reservations during travel for competitions. My coach [Nehpal Singh] said, ‘Don’t care about anything. Just go and run the race.’”
That mindset was again visible in Nagoya. Rather than allowing the scale of the occasion to overwhelm her, Ramraj concentrated on execution and eventually produced the fastest 400m hurdles time of her career. She also believes recovery played a major role in her breakthrough. Before the Asian Games, Ramraj trained in Spala, Poland, where she focused heavily on rest and recovery. “I slept for 10 hours in these three months. That was what brought my performance,” she said.
With Beijing 2027 now on the horizon, maintaining that discipline could become just as important as improving speed, hurdle technique and race execution. For now, the record belongs to Ramraj. But her coach has already raised the bar. The difference between 54.75 and sub-54 is only 0.76 seconds, yet in elite 400m hurdles, that gap represents months of preparation, technical refinement and physical conditioning.
At the end of the function, Vithya was given an eight-gram gold coin, while her coach, Nehpal, was given a cheque of ₹1 lakh by Tanishq. The recognition is another reward for a breakthrough Asian Games campaign. But Ramraj’s attention is already elsewhere. The 42-year wait to surpass Usha’s record is over. Now comes the chase for 54 seconds, followed by the bigger challenge of making her mark on the World Championships stage in Beijing.
