Winning streak: PT Usha on running, the Rajya Sabha and a life lived for sport

The heartbreak of a bronze missed by 1/100th of a second was relayed home in high-shutter-speed images. The start; the run; the leap; and the loss. And then, when it was over, she stood, rail-thin, but proud and defiant, her coach OM Nambiar by her side.

The young woman became a symbol of perseverance. If a young athlete from a nondescript village, with little supporting infrastructure, could race past some of the world’s best, anyone could aim for glory through discipline and dedication, legions of schoolgirls were told.

Usha lives by those two words: discipline and dedication. “I have lived sports since I was 13,” she adds, speaking on the phone from her home in Payyoli, Kerala. “I’m 58 and I haven’t been without sports in my life since then.”

Usha has since won championships and broken records, earned the nickname Payyoli Express, used her story and her platform to encourage more girls and women to take up sports and break down barriers. The Usha School of Athletics, which she opened in 2002, offers young girls with talent a level of grassroots support she couldn’t have dreamed of even while ruling the track in Asia in the ’80s.

Now, she’s set to become a Member of Parliament, having been nominated to the Rajya Sabha by President Ram Nath Kovind. Usha sees it as more responsibility than “alankaram” (decoration).

“We’re all very happy. She is someone who was with me at so many international meets. I always ran the third lap in the relay and handed the baton with a lead to Usha,” says former middle-distance runner Shiny Wilson, now a general manager with Food Corporation of India.

Vasudevan Baskaran, captain of India’s victorious 1980 Moscow Olympics hockey team recalls Usha’s transformation from a shy young woman to a strong communicator with unwavering passion for athletics. In 1982, as sports officer with the Southern Railway based in Madras, he hired the young Usha to lead the athletics team.

“I remember going from Madras to Payyoli to hand over the appointment letter. It was monsoon in Kerala and I walked through some fields,” says Baskaran, 71, speaking from Chennai. “The family was happy that she had been posted to Kozhikode so she could continue her training under Nambiar uninterrupted.”

Usha succeeds Manipuri boxer and Olympic medallist MC Mary Kom as the sporting presence in the House.

It is a matter of pride, Baskaran says, that Usha is the first sports icon from a southern state to get a Rajya Sabha nomination. “She is highly deserving, is at the right age and has been part of the Indian coaching system. She can visualise what athletes need. She can help secure more funds. And she is a go-getter,” he says.

It’s good to see at least elite athletes get more support these days, Wilson adds. “Usha and I had to sometimes fight for a glass of juice after training in 44-degree-Celsius weather.”

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The heartbreak of 1984 seemed to spur Usha on to a streak of wins for India. Across her 18-year international career (1980 to 1998), she won 11 Asian Games medals — four golds at the 1986 Seoul Games and seven silvers across 1982 (Delhi), 1986 (Seoul), 1990 (Beijing) and 1994 (Hiroshima). She also won 14 golds and three bronze medals across five Asian Athletics Championships.

Then she began working to groom a next generation of champions. “I started in 2002 with 12 students. The kids used to stay in a rented house and train on a 200m track. We now have 25 girls, most from outside Kerala,” she says.

Tintu Luka, who ran the sub-two minute 800m a few times, won medals at the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games and still holds the national record, was her student. Usha is confident there will be more.

Over time, an entire support system has grown up around her academy: businessman T.V. Mohandas Pai; philanthropist Sudha Murty; and Infosys co-founder SD Shibulal’s wife Kumari Shibulal, who has helped through the Akshaya trust. The union sports ministry and the Kerala government have pitched in with a synthetic track, a new plot, and funds for a new hostel. The NGO Olympic Gold Quest and Rotary Club have provided gym equipment, IIT-Madras has supplied cardiac-monitoring devices.

Usha, meanwhile, has never lived away from Payyoli because she believes she must put in the time, get to know the girls, recognise each one’s challenges, and help them grow. “The RS nomination is an honour for me. (But) I want to contribute more for sports. Anything I can do,” she says. “Whatever I do, the academy will remain a priority. Wherever I go, the academy comes first.”