Cyprus Sport and Leisure

Cyprus and the Olympic Shooting range in Nicosia will be hosts to the 2007 Shotgun World Championships of the International Shooting Sport Federation. Between the 1st and 10th of September the prestigious event returns to Cyprus for a third time, with the Mediterranean island expecting to welcome more than 1,100 athletes from nearly 80 countries in the sport’s biggest competition of the year.

In 1995 and 2003 Nicosia hosted the same tournament with positive results, so the Cyprus Shooting Federation hopes to make the 2007 event an even bigger success.
Trap, Double Trap and Skeet are on the schedule of events, which lasts for 10 days, and the planet’s best shooters will be hoping to win one of the five Beijing Olympics qualifying cards up for grabs.

Cyprus was awarded the World Championship in 2002 after outbidding China and Brazil. The great climate as well as the excellent facilities in Nicosia encouraged the ISSF to give Cyprus the responsibility of hosting such a major competition.

The island nation enjoys a high status in the world shooting community and is considered one the best in the world, especially in skeet shooting. The World Record holder, Giorgos Achilleos, is Cyprus’s biggest hope for an Olympic medal in Beijing, while Antonis Nikolaidis, currently the fifth seed in the world, is another contender for the country to experience success in the Chinese capital.

On September 1st the team delegations will arrive, marking the beginning of the World Championship, while the next day the Opening Ceremony will take place with the President of the Republic of Cyprus Mr Tassos Papadopoulos announcing the start of the games.

The first World Champions will be decided on September 3rd in the Men’s Double Trap final. Two days later the final of the Women’s Skeet will be played while the Men’s Trap final is scheduled for September 6th. The Women’s Trap and the Men’s Skeet final are booked for September 8th and 9th respectively. Each event will provide one quota place for Beijing.

The crème de la crème of the shooting world will gather in the Olympic shooting range of Nicosia, one of the best complexes in the world. It is located 10 km from Nicosia and 45 km from Larnaca airport. The 1989-built, 100 hectares range has hosted major events such as two previous World Championships, many World Cup events and the European Championships in 2004. Four skeet and four trap ranges provide seats for 48 athletes to compete at any given time.
Entrance to the event will be free of charge and the organising committee hope for a large attendance during the games. Sigma TV will broadcast the World Championship live.

Andri Eleftheriou is Cyprus’s number one in the women’s skeet discipline. Petite and attractive, the 23- year-old shooter shatters any misconceptions you might have about women and guns. Andri is used to defending her passion for the sport: “People think it is dangerous and not for a woman but I have proven them wrong and beaten men in the sport many times,” she asserts.

Andri took up shooting when she was only ten and received professional coaching from the age of seventeen. She explained what attracted her to the sport. “Even when I was a child I liked extreme sports, I was like a boy,” she says.

Shooting remains a male dominated sport and there are just six women shooting competitively in Cyprus compared to around one hundred men. Worldwide, only sixty women are considered to be world-class shooters.

I asked Andri and skeet teammate Louiza Theofanous how they believe the imbalance can be addressed. Louiza says, “It would be good for the sport to have younger girls to start now; we need them to be able to continue the sport.” Andri has an idea: “Maybe we can be the coaches for these girls,” she suggests.

Andri and Louiza are coached by Sydney Olympic silver medallist Petr Malek from Czechoslovakia and say the coaching has enabled them to compete at the top levels of the sport. “Before we didn’t have a coach like this; Petr has taken us to a much higher level,” explains Louiza.

With the Olympics just a year away, Andri is aiming for a medal in Beijing and has already begun training for the competition. “I have started my training but I will train even harder next year. I spend all day on the shooting range, do some hard training in the gym as well as psychological preparation, which is important as you have to stay controlled, calm and focused.”

When it comes to talking about guns both Andri and Louiza have strong opinions. Andri owns three shotguns whilst Louiza has two, however they emphasise they are just for sport. “Outside of the sport I am against guns. In this sport nothing is dangerous as everything is very controlled,” declares Andri. Louiza concurs. “People kill, not guns,” she says firmly.

Handing down experience

Melissa Reynolds

Although London-born Cypriot Antonis Nicolaides did not pick up a gun until he was twenty-two, he has since achieved significant success in the sport, including a collection of Commonwealth medals.

Antonis is going to Beijing determined to bring back the only medal he says he has left to win before retiring from competition to focus on coaching. “I want to retire when I am at the top,” he says. For now he has nine months of Olympic preparation ahead of him and will be working hard on his mental and physical fitness to achieve his goal. Shooters need to keep their bodies supple rather than build muscle, so training exercise consists of swimming, running and even table tennis.

Coaching will be Antonis’s new challenge in the sport. Earlier this year he travelled to Finland for coaching training and now comes to the range three times a week to share his skills with new shooters. He explains why it is so important to him: “If I have the ability to pass whatever I know to other shooters and I see them improving it gives me confidence,” he says. Asked if he will give up the shooting himself he replied, “I will keep coming, I love shooting, and the coaching is a way to keep me involved in the sport.”

There are currently forty-two juniors being primed to continue the medal winning success of the Cyprus team. One big fan of Antonis’s coaching skills is Ian McFarlane, Captain of the Welsh Olympic skeet team and based in Cyprus as an officer in the Royal Engineers. Ian says Cyprus is not only the perfect place for shooting training but he now has the best coach. Explaining what he enjoys about the sport Ian says, “It’s more than a hobby, it’s a discipline. It gives you focus and you have to be mentally and physically fit.” He adds that he thinks the sport is suitable for everyone: “Anyone can do it; it’s inclusive.”

If you have your sights on learning to shoot and want to find out more, contact one of the following organisations:

The Cyprus Shooting Sport Federation on 22 449822 or www.csf-shooting.org
The Limassol Shooting Club on 25 991120 or www.shootingclub.org
The International Shooting Sports Federation: www.issf-shooting.org