When she trained on the Payyoli beach as a young girl more than three decades ago, a curious crowd followed her every movement. “They were surprised to see a girl running in shorts. Sometimes, the children used to tease me. Those days, nobody gave much importance to sport,” says P.T. Usha, looking back. She is a path-breaker, a woman whose achievements in Indian sport remain unparalleled — a sprinter and hurdler who dominated Asia in an international career spanning nearly two decades. An athlete who was so good, she could even break a national sprint record at the age of 35. No wonder, the Indian Olympic Association honoured Usha with the Sportsperson of the Century award in 1999, a honour she shared with hockey wizard Dhyan Chand.
There is something about Usha that sets her apart from the rest. Even today, little girls who take to athletics, say they are inspired by her. Preeja Sreedharan, the young lady who created magic at the recent Asian Games in Guangzhou with a gold and silver in distance events, says, “Usha has always been my inspiration. And I know we can never come anywhere close to her achievements.”
Usha's career has been a very interesting journey. Speaking to her, one gets the feeling that Usha has been talking to herself a lot right from a very young age, fighting mental battles and steeling herself for a long and fantastic journey. “My dad did not want me to take up sport initially, he was worried that I would get injured,” says Usha. “I was good in science in school and parents thought I would become a school teacher like my mother.”
At the Kannur Sports School, athletics coach O.M. Nambiar, who later became her personal coach and guided her to fame, made life a sweet affair. “He coaxed us to do more exercises by offering us sweets. I used to get a lot of them,” says the 46-year-old Usha, who has been honoured with the Padma Shri and Arjuna awards.
Her hunger and obsession to break away from the rest probably emerged during her maiden State meet in Pala. “I was out in the heats and one Sreelatha was the winner in the 100m and 200m. I watched her winning from a distance and told myself that I would win the next year,” says Usha.
Usha was on the fast lane after that. And at 16, she went to the 1980 Moscow Olympics as one of the country's youngest athletes ever at the Summer Games. “I was scared when I saw the big stadiums in Russia. Angel Mary and Mercy Kuttan were with me but they were both seniors and went their own way…I was often left alone. That's how I think I began to learn things fast.”
It was a big surprise to hear Usha say that the system helped her in a big way. “I always got what I wanted. I got Nambiar transferred to Mercy College in Palakkad when I studied there, and later when I wanted him as my personal coach, in 1983, the Government sanctioned it immediately. I was the first athlete in the country to have a personal coach.”
Within the next couple of years, Usha had established herself as one of the top sprinters in Asia, winning 100m and 200m silvers at the 1982 New Delhi Asian Games and the 400m gold, on her international debut in the event, at 1983 Asian Championship in Kuwait.
With the women's 400m hurdles slated for an Olympics debut at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, Usha and Nambiar saw the event as a good chance of winning a medal, which would have been the country's first athletics medal. She began training for the event six months before the Olympics. “The 1982 Asian Games champion M.D. Valsamma's coach gave a statement in the media that if Valsamma had some 15 days training on a synthetic track, she would beat me. I was very interested in the challenge. I kept that paper cutting under my bed and used to read it often,” reveals Usha.
The final Olympics trial in Delhi set the stage for the big race, on a synthetic track. And Usha won by a big margin. After defeating American Judy Brown, a top hurdler, at a pre-Olympic event, she was expected to win India's first athletics medal at the Olympics. Sadly, Usha missed the bronze by a whisker at Los Angeles.
However, the Olympic exposure gave Usha new confidence. She came back from the 1985 Asian Meet with a five-gold haul and emerged as the Continent's fastest woman. No wonder they called her Asia's “Golden Girl” and “Payyoli Express”.
Usha was also involved in some interesting races with Philippines' glamorous Lydia de Vega which brought a lot of followers to the sport. After beating Lydia to the Asia's fastest woman title at the 1985 Asian meet, Lydia took that honour in the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul but Usha still came back with four golds, including one in the 4x400 relay. That fetched her the Adidas Golden Shoe award for the best athlete at the Asiad. “Lydia was virtually my only rival those days,” says Usha. “She was very friendly but at the 1985 Jakarta Asian Meet, after every race she and her dad complained that I was on dope. I was tested after each race.”
Usha felt she was in fine nick, after changing her stride pattern, on the road to the 1988 Seoul Olympics. But just when things were beginning to look promising, came a heel injury which hampered her training. And when she finished seventh in the heats in the 400m hurdles, there was more pain awaiting her. “A lot of top athletes let me down with their statements in the media. Some said I had betrayed the nation. They stoned my house. I used to lock myself in a room. I never used to talk to anybody; I was very, very hurt,” explains Usha. For a girl who put the country before self, who probably lost out on an Olympics medal because she had to run in too many events, it was too much to bear. “That was a period when I hated sport.”
Her parents were her only source of support during those painful days. “When the 1989 New Delhi Asian Championship came, I wanted to win, to be happy once again. I was in good form and for the first time, my sisters came to watch me in an international meet.” She was happy too with the golden haul. “I gave up sports in my mind after that…I completely stopped.”
Beijing Asiad
But with the Beijing Asian Games coming up in 1990, the country needed her once again. “All the SAI (Sports Authority of India) officials came to my house. They wanted me to run in Beijing Asiad. But my dad said ‘no'. They went but they sent a very touching letter requesting me to run for the country. At the Beijing Asiad, I got three silver medals.”
She announced her retirement from the Chinese capital, married V. Sreenivasan in 1991 and had a son. Sreenivasan played a big role in her comeback after a three-year break, in 1993. Usha was not the same after that but in 1998, at the age of 34, she stunned everyone when she won bronze medals at the Asian Championship in Fukuoka, Japan. A year later, she broke her own national record in the 200m. “I can never be away from sport,” says Usha, now a coach who runs the Usha School of Athletics in Koyilandy, near Kozhikode.
The academy is now 10 years old and Usha feels her trainee, 800m national record holder Tintu Luka, is capable of winning an Olympic medal one day. “The biggest joy after starting the school is when I realise that there are many people standing with me,” says Usha.
Some of the biggest stars of the corporate and sports world like Mohandas Pai, Sudha Murthy, P.N.C. Menon, Kumari Shibulal and Geet Sethi and Prakash Padukone (the two sports stars through the Olympic Gold Quest) along with the Kerala Government, which offered her land for the academy, are all supporting her. The Central Government recently sanctioned Rs. five crore for a synthetic track at the academy which should be a big blessing for the athletes.
In a way, Usha is still running for the country and clearing hurdles too.
