Joss Prone for Rifl e Success
and I’ll get back up there.” That’s right – he said
“Olympic Games.” Joss’ goals are not only to earn Paralym- pic quotas in R3 (10m Mixed Air Rifl e Prone SH1) and R6 (50m Rifl e Prone SH1) and a Paralympic Games Team nomination, but to be a competitive Prone shooter – period.
“I’m putting a lot of time
and energy into it and I’m getting pretty good at it. I want to be one of those guys who when you go to a World Cup, people are asking ‘Is he here? Because I don’t want to shoot against that guy because he’s friggin’ good.’ That’s my goal.” Though 2014 saw Joss left
off several podiums, in 2015, Joss shot a Day 1 Qualifi cation score at the IPC World Cup in Croatia in July that would have put him in most Open fi nals, made one of two Open Prone Rifl e Finals at the National Championships and earned a Prone Rifl e MQS shooting in his fi rst ISSF World Cup in Gabala, Azerbaijan. “If I’m shooting well at the
Open level, I’ll be shooting really well at the Para level because the scores in Open 50m Prone are much higher than 50m Para Prone, so they work together, really,” Joss said. “[At Nationals] I earned eighth place for sure there, but I learned a lot and every fi nal after that I’ll be better. I was extremely nervous because I was shooting with the best in the country – able- bodied, one-legged, two- legged, it didn’t matter – they
were the very best and I was up there with them after only two years of shooting Prone and some of these guys have been doing it 15, 18 years and here I am! “When I was in Gabala,
they looked past the differ- ence saying ‘I don’t think that thing on the end of his leg is going to help him any’ and they let me shoot and I didn’t embarrass myself,” Joss added. “I went there with that goal of getting an MQS, even though I shoot a score like that every day – higher than that every day – but it was nerve-wracking for me. Now that I’ve shot at an Open cup and I did well enough, every Cup after that will be better from here. The only difference was that I stepped from Para – which is a diffi cult sport on its own – to the ab- solute, against the most elite
shooters. I know I can shoot with those guys and I know I can have good scores... it’s just getting enough experi- ence with them in that kind of situation to be able to work on it and get better.” Joss credits training at the USAMU alongside Olympians “Sergeant Master Blaster” Ja- son Parker, Michael McPhail and Eric “Uncle Upta” Upta- grafft (as he jokingly refers to them) to his quick growth in the sport, taking some- thing from each of them and applying it to his own match regimen. From Parker? The Prone
Shuffl e –things don’t feel right until you shrug your shoulders a little bit and settle. “And then once you settle,
you’re looking over your sights at the fl ags, and once you see the condition you want to shoot in, you’ve made a com-
mitment to shoot that shot and you put your head down nice and smooth, do your breathing and take your shot.” McPhail? He’s learned pa-
tience. “Hey, when he shoots, he’s really patient!” Joss said defi antly. “He waits for the wind, waits for differences in lighting, clouds, he doesn’t do dumb stuff when it comes to that.” Uptagrafft? “I learn posi-
tion things from him since our positions are very similar. We shoot the same type of gun and I try to mimic his posi- tion – kind of hybrid his and McPhail’s together. I’d just watch – watch where they put their hands, where they’d put their cheeks and try to copy what they’ve got because they were the two best I ever had dealings with.
September 2015 | USA Shooting News
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