M.D. Valsamma interview: On Kerala’s athletics legacy, P.T. Usha and her 1982 Asian Games Gold

She was Kerala’s golden girl before the golden girl came along. M.D. Valsamma’s gold in the 400m hurdles at the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi inspired several young girls in Kerala to take up athletics. P.T. Usha was not just her Indian teammate — they qualified for the 4x400m relay at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics — she was also her junior at Mercy College (Palakkad), where the Kerala Government started its sports hostel, paving the way for a revolution in women’s athletics in the State.

Excerpts from a rare interview Valsamma gave The Hindu at Kochi:

For a State that has produced a large percent of India’s female track-and-field athletes, Kerala cannot boast of too many big stars at the moment.

It is almost shocking that no female athlete from Kerala has qualified for the Olympics since 2016. For a State that has given India so many great athletes from my time onwards — Usha, Mercy Kuttan, Sreekumari Amma and I are all products of the sports hostel at Mercy College — it is indeed a sorry state of affairs. Until recently, we had athletes like Anju Bobby George and Tintu Luka.

It indeed pains me to see the decline in women’s athletics in Kerala. Things are better in men’s athletics, but the fact is that Kerala isn’t the force that it used to be in Indian athletics. We shouldn’t forget that most of our girls in athletics come from financially weak families and they need jobs, which are few these days. Our athletes should be funded properly and there should be enough physical education teachers at our schools. Even those schools in Kerala which used to focus on athletics aren’t doing it now.

And other States are doing better. Odisha, for instance.

Yes. People from other States have come to Kerala and studied how we did it. And they are doing what we used to do.

You were speaking of how Kerala got it right early on, by starting those sports hostels all those decades ago. It is remarkable that Usha, Mercy, Sreekumari and you were all at Mercy College at the same time.

I joined the college because of the physical education teacher at Alakode NSS School in Kannur. N.J. Paul convinced my parents that I had potential as an athlete. He came to our home and told them that the Kerala Government was starting a sports hostel. So my brother took me to Thrissur for the trials. I was initially on the wait-list, but later on I was able to join the first batch at Mercy College. Usha joined us a year later.

My family migrated from central Travancore to Malabar in 1952. We are originally from Pala. Ours was a very famous family there, called Manathur. When the family came to Malabar, I wasn’t born. The migrants made a living from farming, but had to fight against wild animals and diseases like malaria. There were ten of us siblings, and I was the youngest. Some of them were interested in athletics — my sisters Aleykutty and Anna and brother Antony. And our school was four kilometres away and we would walk. That was actually my first training as an athlete.

Your breakthrough came at the Inter-State meet in 1981 at Bengaluru, where you won five gold medals.

Yes, in 400m, 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles and the two relays.

How did you happen to focus on 400m hurdles, which was a relatively new event at the time?

At Mercy College, I was focusing on long jump, but I saw this girl, called Prema, doing hurdles. She was my batch-mate. Watching her, I also wanted to try it. After a couple of days, I started to do it pretty well. But my coach, A.K. Kutty, who would transform me as an athlete, wasn’t keen initially. In fact, I worked on the hurdles only when he wasn’t around; he wanted to focus only on my strong events. Then I asked him whether I could train in it since I loved it so much. He was not sure since I wasn’t tall. When he saw that I was clearing the hurdles smoothly, and doing better than Prema, he agreed. Thus I began to compete in 100m hurdles; the 400m version wasn’t an event in India at the time.

In 1982, you won the 400m hurdles gold at the Asian Games in New Delhi.

My coach told me that there was this new event, 400m hurdles, and since I used to do the 400m flat, I should try it. And that was a turning point in my career. I began to focus on 400m hurdles, with India hosting the Asian Games. At the national camp in Patiala, I concentrated on that event as we knew that we had the chance to win India a gold.

Since the 400m hurdles was going to be held at 1 p.m., I started practising at that time every afternoon. So I didn’t have lunch for the whole year; I had to reach the ground at 12 o’clock and by the time I finished, at around 3 p.m., the canteen would have closed. So I would have juice, and come back for the training in the evening.

We reached Delhi 15 days before the event and practised at the same time in the afternoon. The pressure was huge, as was the excitement. It was the first time I was running in such a big stadium. I qualified for the finals comfortably. Those days, the lane was decided by lots and I got the last one, though I had clocked the fastest time among all the runners going into the final.

That was a disadvantage, as I wasn’t able to see what was happening on the other seven tracks until the eighth hurdle. I saw my rivals, from China and Japan, were two steps ahead of me. When I reached the 10th — last — hurdle, I felt like my legs were getting heavy. When I reached the 10th hurdle, they were still a step ahead, but my legs somehow drew some strength and I dashed to the finish. And I will never forget the cheer from the crowd of 80,000 people at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Later on, I felt gratified to learn that my performance inspired so many girls to take up athletics.

Two years later, you made history at the Los Angeles Olympics in the women’s 4x400m relay, alongside Usha, Shiny Wilson and Vandana Rao.

Reaching the final was another unforgettable experience for me. We shocked quite a few people. They hadn’t expected something like that from Indian athletics. Watching Daley Thompson is another memory I cherish from Los Angeles. He was my favourite athlete and I would watch him do his different events in decathlon. I also remember watching Carl Lewis and Sebastian Coe.

Published – March 07, 2026 12:43 am IST