People - ISSF Academy

Meet the people behind ISSF Academy

Our people at your service

We are excited to share our knowledge with you at the ISSF Academy.

Management team

Vesa Nissinen

ISSF Academy Director

Vesa Nissinen (b.1963) is a Finnish leadership professional and sport activist. Combination of practical military pedagogy and academic educational research is the basis of numerous large-scale training and coaching programmes Vesa has planned and executed during his multi-path career. He is the author of 10 books and entrepreneur in many companies. As a national champion and coach in rifle shooting with wide managerial experience Vesa was selected to act as the President of Finnish Shooting Sport Federation in 2017.

John Leighton-Dyson

Head of Training

A lifetime in the sport as an athlete, coach and sports director. Coaching athletes since 1980 in Pistol, Shotgun and Rifle. A student of coaching research and development in our sport working to help athletes become the best they can be.

Post Graduate Diploma in Sports Coaching MMU (UK)
National Coach in ITA, DEN and GBR
Head Coach GBR Pistol and Rifle
Performance Director GBR
Technical Director KUW
Head Coach Pistol and Rifle FIN
Sports Coach of the Year 1995 (UK)

Nektarios Stavrou

Research Director

Nektarios is an Associate Professor of Sport Psychology & Motor Behavior (Faculty of Physical Education & Sport Science, University of Athens). He has BSc in Psychology, BSc in Exercise and Sport Science, PhD
in Sport Psychology, and Post-doc in Exercise & Sport Psychology. He has over 50 publications on peer-review journals and book-chapters. He has more than 20 years applied experience, being the sport psychologist of
Hellenic Olympic Team in Olympic Games Athens 2004, London 2012, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024. He was the Director of the Sport Psychology Lab at the Hellenic Sport Research Institute (2010-2024).

Karoliina Nissinen

Head of Administration

Karoliina is a HR and financial management professional and now also the CEO of Comanleas Inc. She has years of experience in senior HR and finance roles in the legal and defense sectors. Shooting is a hobby and passion for her and now in her calendar, shooting sports fills both work and leisure time. Her dream is to make the ISSF Academy a place that is inclusive, open to everybody and unites the entire international shooting family together.

Kati Niemelä

Head of Growth

Kati is a marketing and business professional and now Head of Growth in the Academy. She has years of experience in building digital businesses and brands. She hopes to make the ISSF Academy brand known around the shooting sport world and for it to be the place to be when one wants to grow as a coach.

Sport psychology team

Robert Päkk

Head of Sports Psychology team

Robert Päkk, M.Sc., is a dual master’s graduate from the University of Jyväskylä’s Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences in Finland. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Jyväskylä’s School of Business and Economics, Robert serves as the Leading Advisor in Mental Coaching for the Finnish Olympic Committee. In this role, he has been responsible for sport psychology at the Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022, and Paris 2024 Olympics. With over a decade of international experience in sport psychology, Robert has focused his research on affect and emotions and their connection to performance. He has worked extensively with athletes across various disciplines, particularly in shooting sports, including shotgun and pistol, as well as sailing, cross-country skiing, and track and field. Additionally, he leads the ISSF Academy Sport Psychology Team.

Jack Bale

Skill acquisition specialist

Jack Bale is a former Team GB rifle shooter who competed internationally for several years. Now an Australia-based skill acquisition specialist (ecological dynamics framework), he is currently completing his PhD investigating the effects of task ambiguity and representative constraints on combat shooting performance. He has applied these ideas to ISSF shooting within his practice as head ISSF rifle coach for Victoria State, consulting for Shooting Australia, and researching ISSF shooting. Jack has a master’s in strength and conditioning coaching and a bachelor’s (Hons) in sports and exercise science.

Janaina Fogaca

Certified Mental performance consultant

Jana Fogaca is an Associate Professor in the Kinesiology Department at California State University, Long Beach. She received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the Federal University of RS (Brazil). She also has two master’s degrees, one in Sport and Exercise Psychology from University of Jyväskylä (Finland) and one in Counseling from West Virginia University, where she also completed her PhD in Sport and Exercise Psychology. Her research interests include professional development in sport psychology, applied sport psychology, and weight stigma. She is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant through the Association for Applied Sport Psychology, and has experience working with multiple sports at various levels.

Paul Hughes

Sport Psychologist

Paul Hughes CPsychol, HCPC is a UK-based Sport Psychologist with extensive experience in elite sports since 2008. In 2014, he became the Lead Psychologist for the GBR Paralympic and Olympic Shooting Teams, where he built a team of psychologists to support athletes and coaches across the programmes. Concurrently, Paul spent eight years as a Senior Sport Psychologist with the English Institute of Sport, supporting and preparing the GBR Shooting Teams through the Rio and Tokyo Olympic cycles. In 2022, Paul transitioned to freelance work, using his mental training platform to support sport shooters worldwide. He continues to work with shooters and coaches at all levels and attended his third Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

Rifle team

Anton Belak (SVK)

Rifle Head Instructor

Anton Belak (b.1961) is a Slovak professional shooting coach, ISSF A coach. He has been shooting for over 50 years. He has been working as a professional trainer for more than 38 years. He is the only coach in the world whose athletes won the ISSF Shooter of the Year title 3 times. As a coach, he participated in 4 Olympic Games. He helped his athletes win Olympic medals, many titles and medals at the World Championships in individual and team competitions, and countless victories and medals at the WC Final, World Cups, European, Asian and Arab Championships. He worked as a national coach in Slovakia, Switzerland, Kazakhstan and Kuwait. He founded the website shootingcoach.online. In recent years, he has been dedicated to live online training of athletes and online training of coaches.

Elham Hashemi Masoumi (IRI)

ISSF Coaching Commission Member
Former National Coach in Iran, Singapore and Denmark
ISSF A license Coach in Rifle

Ray Kane (IRL)

Coach and former member of the national team
Multiple participant of the World Military Games

Anjali Bhagwat (IND)

Chief coach at Anjali Bhagwat Shooting Academy
3x Olympian
Ranked Number One in the ISSF World Ranking in 2002

Anna Belakova (SVK)

Former national coach in Switzerland, Kuwait and Kazakhstan
Her shooters won European, Asian and Arab Championships and belonged to top 10 in ISSF ranking