Mumbai, Nov. 8 -- In the last five months, Harita Bhadra scripted a couple of personal best timings and snapped up two Asian Games medals in her first international competition outside the United Kingdom, where she spent three years as a student-athlete.

Now a full-time athlete, her sprint journey, which began in a city known for its fast pace yet not quite fast sprinters in recent times, has picked up speed.

"This is just the beginning," said Mumbai's Harita, back home after a hectic few months of rewriting her own benchmarks and stepping on to podiums in Bhubaneshwar, New Delhi and Nagoya.

The last one, especially, was noteworthy, given that there have been only a handful of Indian women sprinters to medal at the Asian Games. By winn...