Eight months pregnant, Meghana Sajjanar delivers at Asian Championships

In an interview conducted shortly after the conclusion of the medal ceremony of the women’s 10m air rifle competition at the Asian Shooting Championships on Saturday evening, bronze winner Meghana Sajjanar was asked what the medal meant to her.

Whether this was the highlight of her year, Meghana was asked. The 32-year-old smiled and nodded politely. While there’s no doubt that a maiden individual Asian medal—alongside a gold medal in the women’s team event—is an impressive achievement, Meghana has another very significant milestone coming up very soon.

In just around a month the 32-year-old will become a mother.

It’s something that makes her accomplishment on Saturday evening even more remarkable. Few sports test balance and precision as much as 10m air rifle shooting. Building a solid base and reducing body tremors while aiming at a bullseye 0.5mm across is hard enough without carrying a fully developed baby inside you.

“So, it’s a really different, a very special experience to be in the eighth month of pregnancy and shooting. It was difficult, but I was able to manage it,” Meghana says.

She did more than just manage. Competing in the final while sporting a very obvious baby bump, Meghana fired just once outside the 10 ring—a 9.6 in her penultimate shot that resulted in her missing out on a silver medal.

While she turned a few heads when she lined up at the firing line, Meghana says she always planned to train and compete after finding out that she was pregnant last year. “There was never any doubt in my mind that I would be training and competing as long as I could,” she says.

READ: Asian Championship 2026: Elavenil wins 10m air rifle gold, Meghana clinches bronze

Her coach, Rakesh Manpat, with whom she trains in Bangalore, was taken aback at first, though. “I only heard about someone competing so late in their pregnancy once before. It was at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. That athlete was coached by (former national coach) Laszlo Suchak, who had been my coach. So I thought, ‘Let me try to figure out how to give Meghana the help she needed,” he says.

Multiple challenges

The challenges to overcome were obvious. Consistency is key in any precision sport, and rifle shooters try to maintain their body shape and weight as far as possible. “I competed in 2001 when I was five months pregnant, but I was taking part in the prone event, where it’s easier to adjust. The margins in 10m air rifle are so small that even a 100-gram increase in bodyweight or a centimeter gained or lost throws your shooting base and balance off,” says national coach Deepali Deshpande.

That, of course, wasn’t possible for Meghana. “I can’t just think about fitness but also about the fact that I have a child now. My diet has to change accordingly. In terms of training, I think the balance was a little difficult to get because my body was changing every day. Every day I had to adjust my balance. There were some days when things were easier and other days when it was much harder. But there was no easy day!” she says.

Rifle shooters compete with a customised jacket and trousers that provide additional stiffness, and there too Meghana had to adjust. “I had some extra material, so I was always stretching and making alterations to the kit,” she says.

Initially Meghana was at least able to manage. Having first competed for the Indian team as a 21-year-old in 2016, she would win her first World Cup medal—a bronze in the women’s 10m air rifle competition—in Ningbo while she was five months pregnant.

But as her pregnancy progressed, things got harder. “We had to reduce the amount of training she was doing. It was difficult for her to stand on her feet for long sessions, so we had to reduce her workload,” Manpat says.

Despite this, Meghana’s performance in international events and selection trials earned her the opportunity to compete at the Asian Championships, and she was adamant that she would. “Initially when Meghana told me last December that she wanted to compete at the Asian Championships in February, I didn’t think too much about it because at that time she was only six months pregnant. But then I realised that she would be in her last month in February! So, I spoke to our sports scientists and physios to check if there could be any problem that we needed to watch out for. But they all agreed that she was fit and ready to compete,” says Deshpande.

Supportive teammates

Her compatriots and coaches have been supportive through her training. “My teammates do treat me differently. It’s a little hard for me to pack up after I shoot, so they help me lift all my stuff. That’s helped me out a lot,” she says.

It was all up to her, though, at the Karni Singh Range on Saturday. Particularly challenging was the qualifying round, where she had to be on her feet for an hour as she took 60 shots. “Typically finals are difficult, but for Meghana, the qualification round was equivalent to a final. Being able to stand for so long in the same position is extremely difficult. After the first series (where she shot a relatively poor 103.2), I could see she was in a lot of difficulty. She was actually placed 18th at that point, but she pushed herself incredibly (she eventually qualified in fifth place with a score of 628.6). Meghana later told me that it was the most difficult day of shooting in her career,” says coach Manpat.

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Hard as it was, Meghana has managed to come through with a medal. It’s a result that her coaches are proud of. “It’s broken a few barriers for women. I think a lot of people today would have watched her and rethought what they felt was possible for women athletes,” says Deshpande.

It might even be a sign of bigger things to come, says Manpat. “The fact that Meghana could get the kind of result she got when few others would even have tried to compete shows the kind of character and resilience she has. It should give her so much confidence for the future,” says Manpat.

But while most athletes would want to continue competing at this stage with the selection trials next month, Meghana will be packing up her gun and kit. But not for long, though. “After my delivery, I’m going to be taking a break for the next three months. But then I’ll be back shooting!” she says.

Published on Feb 07, 2026