Vithya Ramraj celebrated her bronze medal in the women's 400 m hurdles like it was the gold. She waited for the official timing of 54.75 seconds to show up and was instantly overjoyed, jumping and dancing, giving hugs to fellow competitors.
That wasn't simply because she had run a great race and retained her bronze medal from the previous edition; Vithya had set a new national record in the event.
It was a memorable one too as Vithya eclipsed a 42-year-old record held by P T Usha, a time she herself had equalled three years ago, but not managed to beat, until now.
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The native of Tamil Nadu had equalled the legendary Usha's 1984 Olympic timing of 55.42 seconds. Usha had famously missed out on a historic Olympic bronze medal back then when her national record time was 1/100th of a second more than the third-placed athlete, Cristieana Cojocaru of Romania.
Vithya cleared all 10 hurdles and was almost level with the UAE's Kareem Mariam and Kazakhstan's Adelina Zems before they entered the home stretch. Mariam took gold, clocking 54.31 seconds, also the Games record, while Adelina was second on 54.58 seconds, a personal best.
Vithya had been the bronze medallist at the Hangzhou Games in 2022. India have secured a hat-trick of bronze medals in the event as Kerala's Anu Raghavan had finished on the podium. Today, Anu was fifth in the final, clocking 55.88.
