Elite Squash Middle East MD John Jossifakis is aiming high and is working on making his dreams a reality as he shoots for Olympic stardom as an air pistol shooter. Here he talks exclusively with Sport360.
I’m on the Canadian national team and the goal is to get onto the Olympic team, the UAE is letting me train in Al Ain where the facilities are phenomenal. The shooting centre is an Olympic-level venue with the top-notch equipment, electronic scoring and events they host.
As an ex-pat, you can’t bring weapons in and out of the country but the UAE has been very understanding. The shooting federation of Canada and the UAE along with the support of the Abu Dhabi police, have made it possible to train here.
Being half-Greek, I got inspired by Anna Korakaki back in 2016, when she won a gold and bronze medal for Greece in Rio. I’ve liked shooting all my life and wanted to get involved and this was the thing that inspired me to do so. The day after she won the gold medal I went to the shooting range and began practising.
Shooting allows all ages to take part, it’s actually beneficial to be older for a sport like this, it’s easier to train yourself to lower your heartbeat. I’m taking part in a national event in Canada this summer and competing against others on the team. I’ll be training the States for a month or so in April with world class Olympic air pistol coach Sill Lyra.
There aren’t a huge amount of air shooters in the UAE, however in 2004 Sheikh Ahmad bin Mohammad bin Hasher Al-Maktoum won a gold medal for shooting at the Olympics, the first ever medal for the UAE. The community grew here after that.
I also work with a personal trainer four times a week because lifting a weapon repeatedly for large amounts of time takes a significant amount of muscle control and strength. You also need to have a stable core so there’s no swaying of the upper body. I also do a lot of shoulder work to make sure that the hand movement is very stable. Even the slightest movement when shooting at a target makes all the difference. You’re basically trying to hit a one-centimetre target from ten metres so you’ve got to have a steady hand, and that means working on it in the gym. It’s a lot of sacrifice but hopefully it’ll all be worth it.
