Tag Archive for 'tiro a volo'

Knowing the sport characteristics is essential

To work on a specific sport to improve the performance of athletes, it is necessary, as a first step, to identify its main elements. By way of example, the characteristics of two disciplines that, even though they are very different from each other, require a high level of psychological commitment are shown: Olympic sailing and the Olympic trap in clay shooting.

The characteristics of the Olympic sailing classes

  1. Open skill sport in which performance is influenced by changes in the external environment.
  2. Requires control and guidance of a boat and the body is a means of regulating the action of forces external to it
  3. Performance is carried out under varying environmental conditions in which wind, sea current, wave and other weather factors can change widely and suddenly.
  4. The performance takes place over a period of several days with two races per day as per the rules of Olympic racing;
  5. It involves considerable tactical skill and quick decision-making.
  6. The performance over the course of a day is about five hours between preparation, approach to the race course, race, break between the two tests and return to land.
  7. For some Olympic classes, which are not individual, it requires a strong understanding with the partner.
  8. It involves a view of opponents limited by several factors: environmental, posture on the medium, different routes to go to finish line.

Distinguishing features of the Olympic trap specialty in shooting

  1. Closed skill sport in relation to the uniformity of the technical gesture, but which also requires a considerable ability of the athlete to adapt to changes, even sudden (wind gusts and changes of light), of the environmental conditions.
  2. After the shooter has fired, about 45 seconds pass before it is his turn again.
  3. This condition is repeated throughout the entire series of 25 plates and, with six shooters on the platform, has a total duration of about 25 minutes.
  4. The shooter has his rifle cocked, two shots at his disposal and the time of exit of the clay pigeon is certain and immediate.
  5. There is uncertainty in determining the direction of the clay pigeon (trajectory, angle and height).
  6. Weather conditions can affect the performance.
  7. The competition takes place over two days (three rounds on the first day and two rounds on the second day, plus a possible final).
  8. Between one series and another, at least one hour elapses during which the shooter must: in the first part recover physical and psychological energy and in the second part reactivate himself in order to enter the platform in the best condition.

The knowledge of the characteristics of the sport in which you operate is of primary importance, as it allows to understand what are the psychological implications and attentional demands related to that type of performance. For example, the identification of the characteristics of shooting in trap shows how the shooters must be able to manage the unpredictability of the exit of the clay pigeon, while maintaining the fluidity and precision of the technical gesture. In addition, the shooters must be calm enough to handle the 50-second pauses with confidence, but once the rifle is cocked and the clay pigeon is called, they must be equally ready and responsive to execute their action. The greater is the ability to alternate from one psychological condition to another, the greater the likelihood of performing at the top. For the shooters, it becomes necessary to reduce/eliminate any type of negative and self-evaluating thought, and increase any form of positive action that puts them in a position to express at the best.

In sailing, on the other hand, it is clear that the athletes is required to perform a task that not only requires a high level of mental commitment, since the choice of the type of action to be performed and how to perform it is decisive, but also takes place in an environment subject to strong variations due to the interaction between the boat and the natural elements. Moreover, it requires an accurate athletic preparation and the development of a high degree of tolerance to physical and mental fatigue, in a context that requires quick forecasts and immediate choices. A characteristic of concentration in sailing is that it must be constantly directed towards the external environment. The sailors must know how to correctly anticipate events by moving in a coordinated manner to the ever-changing situations, in fact, even the smallest error in assessing the wind, rather than an inadequate adjustment of the sails or a lack of synchronism in the movements can cause the loss of precious seconds.

Silver medal for Pellielo at trap World Cup Final

Giovanni Pellielo adds another piece to the legend. Silver at the final of the Trap World Cup  involving the 12 2014 best trap shooters, Only a month he won the bronze medal at the World Championships and Olympic quota to go to the Olympics in Rio-2016. Pellielo has been successful to maintain year-round an unbelievable shooting quality and competitivei ntensity that no one else has in the trap shooting. Just remember that the last four events he reached three times in the final with a score of 124 out of 125 clay targets hit and the latter with 123 targets. Against Pellielo  his opponents, in this case the teammate Massimo Fabbrizi, they do  incredible races. In fact, in this competition in the final both have done the same score with 14 targets out of 15, in the shoot-off Pellielo made a mistake only at 19° target, which his opponent instead hit. During his career Pellielo won 3 Olympic individual medals, 4 individual world championship and 6 World Cup Finals.

Fazz’a Italian Green Cup with Andrea Filippetti (coach of the Italian junior shooting national team)

No miracles in sport

Sport is not an environment in which miracles can happen. I was at the Shooting World Championship with the national team of Malta and it’s exactly what happened. The shooters have provided performance at their maximum level, but there were no miracles. In the olympic trap, the shooters have achieved the best performance of the last 10 years with 118 and 117 out of 125. While the junior Maltese athlete got the 13th place out of 65 participants. In the specialty junior double trap, Nathan Xuereb has finished in 1st place in the qualification with 139 out of 150 and in the final came 4th. These results permit to explain that the journey to excellence is long and you get with improvements that are first established in training. The real chance  to reach results of the absolute level is build by high scores did in training and participating in the most of  international competitions. In these situations, the technique and mental preparation of athletes is tested, allowing them to become aware of their strengths and knowing how to engage in the most important competitive moments. For these reasons there are no miracles, but a lot of work in which technique and mind are trained together with the support of the coach and the sport psychologist.

Giovanni Pellielo: A legend of the olympic sports

Today in Granada Giovanni Pellielo won for the seventh time the right to participate in the Olympics. He finished 3rd at the Trap World Championships with an exciting track. In the qualification rounds, he scored 124 out of 125, finishing first with two other shooters. In the semi-finals took 14 out of 15 clay targets He had unbalance with another shooter, he immediately make a mistake and he competedi n a race against another shooter for the third place. Again 15 targets, he hit all the targets, while his opponent misses 3. With this result he also won the Olympic Quota to Rio at the first opportunity. If, as is likely, he will go to Rio it will be his seventh Olympics, where he won 3 medals so far. He’s the most successful athlete in the history of shooting, having also won 4 world and dozens of international competitions. He’s 44 years old.

Shooting world championship: non room for the distractions

It started today in Granada the Shooting World Championship. In this first day, the shooters have done two rounds which showed once again that this is a sport in which there is no room for mistakes. On 5t0 clays fired there are 12 athletes with the maximum score, they have not made ​​a mistake and 24 who have committed only one, out of a total of 145 participants. Six shooters will go in the final  and  after this first day there are 36 shooters that can realistically aspire to this result. The race is on three days and tomorrow there will be two more rounds. It will be ready for the competition who will sleep well tonight and tomorrow morning will think that it’s another day and will be focused only on the first and so on for 25 times. Woe to put further pressure but woe come even thinking “I’m shooting as well today.” Who will stay focused only on what is going to do and nothing else tomorrow night happy.

The issues of the high level shooters

Today I am at a shooting international competition in Todi (Italy) and athletes of different nationalities, from Iran to Great Britain have asked me about their difficulties face in the race, here are a few:

  • What should I do first when for a while I forget what I have to do?
  • What do I do to remove the panic that sometimes comes over me?
  • What I have to do not think of breaking the target and be focused only on my performance?
  • Which are the skills of clay shooting champions?
  • How do I know I am ready before to start?
  • I have not always the same time to shoot, what I have to do to be more consistent?
  • After a mistake I get too nervous, how can I control myself better?

These questions highlight how the difficulties of international level athletes are specific and require that the sport psychologist has specific knowledge of this sport. As psychologists, we must not only provide global responses based on the idea that we must improve the confidence of these athletes, as these questions are asked by athletes who are the best in their country and are used to compete, but this in itself does not eliminate these difficulty.

What do you think?

You need to compete very often

In sport, when you reach a high level of technical expertise allowing to be competitive, it needs to go to the next step that requires you to do a certain number of competition per year. Even in shooting sports, which are the ones that I participate in the Commonwealth Games,  before to compete in an event so important it’s  necessaryto have done at least 6/7 rcompetitions, the majority of which must be at the international level. In the case of athletes who made a few, it’s very difficult to succeed in this type of competitions, because they rarely have tested their ability to cope successfully under pressure. Only through the races, you train this skill to do the best in the most important moments. If not it’s easysy to succumb at the stress and provides a really bad performance. This reflection highlights not only the importance of an adequate psychological preparation to be carried out during these races, but also the need for planning annual competitive season which the athlete has to face.

The relevance of self-control over the mind in clay target shooting

At Commonwealth Games 2014 with Malta shooters, it begins tomorrow the double trap event and the day after trap. Difficult competitions in which you losefor 1 target on 150. Today there was the final of the skeet and, at the challenge for the first and second place, the Scottish athlete who competed in the house, was betrayed by his emotions. After a race in which he missed a very few targets, in the final he missed the last 5. Incredible! If he had as many missed in the first 125 that give access to the final he would never reached it. While in the final on 15 targets he lost 6 or 40% wrong. The clay target shooting requires a near-perfect control of the emotions and thoughts, if any useless idea or emotion enters uncontrolled in the mind of the shooter even for a few moments  the performance is probably compromised.

Maltese shooters at the end of the last training session before the competition.

Training intensity and mental aspects

The mental component of a high-intensity workout is composed of at least three aspects.

  1. Includes mental skills that the athlete must show in that particular session and they must have already developed at high level, otherwise he will not be able to implement them on an ongoing basis in the training session that is starting.
  2. Includes those exercises or parts thereof in which the coach and the athlete are convinced that they can be performed in an optimal level (eg , for a sprinter who has to run 3x300m , probably it is expected that at least the first , albeit laborious , it will be run as planned. In trap shooting, a skilled athlete knows that she usually hits 20 out of 25 targets performing at the maximum. The same goes for the court, in which a tennis player knows how to play when he is totally focused on the game).
  3. Includes those exercises or parts that determine the quality of that single session. For example, it will be great if the sprinter will be able to run as scheduled on the third repeatition of 300m, or if the shooter will hit more than 20 plates that she usually hits; the same for the tennis player, he has to play well even if he feels tired or he has to maintain a high level of play quality in a training exercise longer and more challenging than usual.

These are the psychological aspects that come into play when training requires physical and mental strength and they are trained only in these moments.