P.T.Usha
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P.T.
Usha is one of India's best-known athletes, the queen of Indian
track and field for two decades, the woman who was nicknamed 'Payyoli
Express' because of her speed on the race-track.
Payyoli Tevaraparampil Usha was born in a poor family in the village
Meladi-Payyoli near Calicut, Kerala. As a young girl Usha had to
face ill health and poverty. What Usha had, even as a child, was an
aptitude for sports which came in handy and won her a scholarship
worth Rs. 250 per month from the Kerala government, which entitled
her to study at a special sports school in Cannore.
That Rs 250 went a long way in the making of Usha's career. It was
at the sports school that she was noticed by O M Nambiar, who took
her under his wing and became her coach for years to come.
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Fundu
Fact |
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It
was her maternal grandfather who named her 'Usha' after a character
in a poem that he was reading when Usha was born. |
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Usha
made her international debut at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 but she
shone into the limelight in the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi,
winning the silver in the 100 m and 200 m event.
At the Asian Meet in Jakarta in 1985 Usha established herself as the
Asian sprint queen with five gold medals (in the 100meters, 200m,
400m, 400m hurdles and the 4x400m relay) besides a bronze in the
100mrelay. This magnificent performance was followed by an equally
brilliant spell an year later at the Asian Games at Seoul where Usha
notched up four golds and a silver medal.
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The
finest moment in Usha's career and also perhaps the saddest however came
in a single race at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. In the 400m
hurdles Usha missed winning the bronze by just 1/100th of a second. She
recorded her best time of 55.42secs in that race -- still an Indian
national record -- but lost the medal in a photo-finish. Usha said that
she cried after the event because "It was
difficult to believe that I had missed an Olympic medal by a whisker."
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Did you
know? |
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In Cochin
there is a road named after P. T Usha. |
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In
the next few years age started taking a toll on Usha and in 1990 she
decided to retire after managing only a silver at the Asian Games in
Beijing.
In 1991 Usha married V Srinivasan, a sub-inspector in the Central
Industrial Security Forces.The next year son Ujjwal was born and
Usha found herself enjoying motherhood.
However, she was soon back on the tracks. Her old interest revived,
Usha decided to give athletics one more go and four years after her
retirement the 'Payyoli Express' returned at the Hiroshima Asiad at
the age of 33 and won a silver in the 400m relay.
Her last international appearance was at the Asian Meet in Fukuoka,
Japan in 1998. She managed to shock some of the younger participants
by winning a gold in the 4x100m relay, silver in the 400m relay and
a bronze each in the 200m and 400m. |
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Fundu
Fact |
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Interestingly at the Fukuoka meet one of the participants in the
sprint event was born a year after P T Usha had started her athletic
career way back in 1980! |
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Usha hung up
her boots for good at the age of 36 in July 2000 with a promise to groom
bright young athletes in her upcoming sports academy in Kerala.
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| P.T.
Usha was honoured with the Arjuna Award in 1983, and the Padmashree
in 1985. She was named 'Sportsperson of the Century' by the Indian
Olympic Association, and till date is the Indian with most
international track and field medals. |
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