[popcorn number="3" desc="No. of medals won by Vithya at the ongoing Asiad; she got silver in 4x400m mixed relay and bronze in 400m hurdles" class="Default"]
 
Sometimes a team, or even an individual, needs to be idiosyncratic, audacious, and in the closing stages, utterly poetic. On a wet, rain-drenched night here, the track became a hope for something rare. With India’s athletics campaign sitting on a frustrating haul of silver and bronze, the pressure on the women’s 4x400m relay quartet — Kiran Pahal, MR Poovamma, Prachi Chaudhary, and Vithya Ramraj — was suffocating. A relay team is a disparate group woven together by a single thread, bound for a team gold that transforms into individual glory of the highest order.

The premise was simple yet desperate: a team gasping for gold like a fish out of water. Kiran opened with a strong leg, passing the baton to Poovamma, whose wealth of experience kept India steady. When Prachi took over, the pace initially slipped, but waking up with sudden urgency, she clawed the ground and delivered the baton for the final 400.