Indian Grand Prix-5: Twin sisters fulfilling mother’s dream

Indervir Grewal

Chandigarh, September 10

Tamil Nadu’s R Vithya Ramraj was still panting after an exhausting 400m race. The 24-year-old beamed with joy as her coaches and friends congratulated her for registering her personal best time at the Indian Grand Prix-5 here today.

“Don’t you run the 400m and 100m hurdles as well,” a journalist asked Vithya as she sat down on the training track still trying to catch her breath. “I also run the 400m hurdles but not the 100m,” Vithya replied, to the surprise of the journalist, who argued that he had seen her compete in the 100m hurdles in Bhubaneswar (National Championships in June).

Vithya took a minute to realise what was going on, and with a smile answered that the journalist was talking about her sister. “We are twins — Vithya and Nithya,” she said. “Even the officials get confused sometimes,” she added.

Double trouble

Though Vithya shed only 00.03 from her previous best of 52.43 seconds, she couldn’t be happier. “This is my favourite event, though I also run in the 400m hurdles,” she said.

Incidentally, Vithya has qualified for the Asian Games in the 400m hurdles event. She had won the Nationals gold in Bhubaneswar with her personal best of 56.01s, breaching the Asian Games qualifying mark by almost 1.30 seconds. Vithya also meets the qualifying standard in 400m (52.96s), but was not selected for the Asian Games due to an AFI technicality.

Vithya, though, is looking only at the positives as the Asian Games will be her biggest event so far. Her joy is doubled by the fact that Nithya has also qualified for the Asiad in the 100m hurdles event. Nithya had finished second in Bhubaneswar with a time of 13.48s, breaching the qualifying mark by 00.15.

“This is the biggest event of our lives and I cannot tell you how happy I am that we will be together in China,” said Vithya. “We kept ourselves motivated by telling each other it was now or never. We are 24, and had we missed this chance… who knows what will happen in the next four years, marriage, injury,” she added.

Mother’s joy

The sisters, who hail from Coimbatore, began their journey into sports on the insistence of their mother Meena. A housewife herself, Meena wanted her daughters to have careers.

“We are three sisters and my mother faced a lot of negativity. People often asked her how we would manage with only girls. So she got the two of us started in sports — for her that was the only path to a career and independence,” Vithya said.

While Vithya is a Railways employee, Nithya, who is currently training in the national camp, works in the Income Tax department. “When our mother found out that both of us had qualified for the Asian Games, she could not control her emotions. It was as much her dream as it was ours,” Vithya said.