Tamil Nadu's Asian Games-bound R Vithya Ramraj came agonisingly close to shattering the legendary PT Usha's 39-year-old women's 400m hurdles record as she clocked 55.43 seconds during the Indian Grand Prix (IGP) 5 on Monday.

The 24-year-old Vithya's time was just one hundredth of a second less than Usha's 55.42 which she had clocked while finishing fourth in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.