Coaching Analysis - Mikhail Nestruev

While at the Athens' World Cup 2004, I was looking for Mikhail Nestruev, waiting for him to take his alotted training position. The start time came and went with no Mikhail. I spotted Zongliang Tan and filmed him, eventually coming back to Mikhail's position.

All of a sudden, he shows up 25 minutes late. I see Mikhail pop out his air pistol, but I assume that he needs to set up. Still in his jacket from outdoors and wearing street running shoes, I see him pick up his pistol and load it. No stretching or warmups. No dryfiring. Just picks up his pistol and shoots a "10.5". I've read elsewhere that he doesn't see the value of dryfiring, but didn't realise how far that went.

Watching him, you can only think one word: "unorthodox." As I said, in training, he doesn't wear shooting shoes or warm up at the range.I should mention that he switches shoes for competition. Stylistically, Mikhail seems to be arching his back over to the right, as well as canting his head. This is not a textbook stance; but, his hold is steady.

At one point, I guess that something didn't feel right. Without lowering his pistol, Mikhail adjusted his head position, as if he were working a kink out of his neck. Still holding his pistol at arm's length, he started adjusting his grip. Then Mikhail held a bit longer before finally aborting the shot. He has an extremely steady hold even when he is doing "unorthodox" things.

As well, Mikhail looks around alot. It appeared that he was watching the shooter to the left of him (Canadian shooter Deepinder Singh Thind, who was aware that he was shooting at his first World Cup beside Mikhail.) This is another thing that I've always been told not to do. Then again, Mikhail is #1, so maybe he's got the confidence to carry him through.

Mikhail must have the ability to go from a very wide focus to a tight narrow focus very fast. One minute he's looking around, the next instant he's shooting another "10". As it was, his warm-up series of ten shots was a "97". Sometimes unorthodox works!

Video Analysis

• Mikhail Nestruev (Russia) - Air Pistol May 2003 : Initially a rifle shooter, Nestruev switched to pistol. At the time of the video (USA WORLD Cup, Ft. Benning 2003), he was ranked #1 in Men's Air Pistol by the ISSF despite the claim that he never dryfires.
• Mikhail Nestruev (Russia) - Air Pistol April 2004: Here is a 2.5 minute video compilation of Mikhail at the Athens' World Cup April 2004. You will see Mikhail from a few different angles, to better understand his positioning. Beware: it's a large file (approx. 11.5 MB) so it may take some time to download.

Still Picture Analysis

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