Alison Weisz on diet and nutrition in sports: How a shooting world champion fuels her success

What does it take to become a world champion shooter?

Alison Weisz knows the answer, having won the USA’s first rifle world title in 43 years when she took her place on the top step of the podium at last year’s World Shooting Championships in Cairo.

The final, which included a nail biting 10m air rifle shoot-off for gold with People’s Republic of China’s Huang Yuting, was the perfect example of the need for focus in a sport where even the slightest dip in concentration can spell the difference between a medal and disaster.

Mental preparation is of course key, with Weisz incorporating sports psychology and mindfulness training into her daily routine.

And then there’s the training. Years of training to perfect your technique and nail down the inch-perfect consistency needed to perform at the elite level.

But for Weisz, there is another element that has been at the forefront of her progress as a shooter: nutrition.

And as someone with a Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics and a Master’s in Clinical Nutrition, she is perhaps in a unique position to talk about how essential nutrition - or fuel - is in the sport of shooting.

Alison Weisz: America’s first rifle world champion in 43 years

Back to that final in Cairo.

With the pressure mounting with every shot, nerves began to get the better of Weisz. She had been in this sort of position before, having competed at Tokyo 2020 and won gold at the 2019 edition of the Pan American Games, but that doesn’t mean it’s ever easy to keep your cool with a world title on the line.

“Some of it got a little blurry,” Weisz explained in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com. “I had two bad shots in a row and the first one happened and I was like, ‘Dang, OK, it’s fine, no big deal.’ And then the second one happened and I remember panicking internally a little but because neither of them made sense.”

With shooters allowed one 30-second timeout, her national coach called hers, pulling her to one side to just give her the time to refocus and remind her to “breathe, connect and don’t stress”.

And while there were no technical revelations to stem the tide of “bad shots”, those moments made all the difference for Weisz as she stepped up to claim the first world title of her career.

“It just completely wiped my mind clean,” said Weisz of that critical half-minute break in the biggest final of her life.

“I remember [after winning] putting our clear barrel indicator in and I was just shaking. And that’s when it was all kind of just dropping on me that I’d just become a world champion and that I’d won the quota for Paris.”

Alison Weisz: “You’ve got to think of your body like a machine”

“You can’t control an outcome, you can’t control how another person is doing in the competition, you can just control yourself and your actions and your thoughts,” Weisz explained about the mental and physical state you need to be in during the heat of a top-level shooting event. 

One of those actions you are able to control is what you put into your body before and during a competition. And for Weisz, it’s among the most essential parts of preparing yourself. 

“The biggest thing is that food is fuel,” she says. “You’ve got to think of your body like a machine and the only source of fuel that it has is by eating food.”

From the outside, fuelling in the right way may not seem important in a sport where athletes are stationary for most of the time they are competing. 

Weisz, though, explains otherwise. 

“It’s a lot of focus and the brain requires a lot of energy, and so having those long periods of focus is actually still expending a lot of energy, just not in the way you would typically think,” she says. 

“It’s just making sure that people know a), in this sport we do need to fuel our bodies and eat healthy and give it the fuel it needs to be able to focus and perform at our peak, and b), knowing what types of fuel that looks like for you and how individualised it is.”

How does a world champion shooter fuel for competition?

Even though Weisz is an expert on nutrition, she still sees a registered dietician and suggests that, due to the personal needs of each person, every athlete should do the same. 

For her own regime, there is a focus on some of the same staples that athletes in many other sports use to maximise their performance: carbs and protein. 

“If we’re staying in a hotel you have to just look at the buffet and figure out what we have there. If you’re able to bring food with you then I’ll bring apple sauces, Fuel for Fires [smoothie pouches] and then protein sources.”

Breakfast for Weisz may consist of “eggs, a piece of toast and maybe some fruit”, while during the day she’ll snack on granola bars to keep her energy levels where she needs them to be. 

“The protein helps extend the energy the carbohydrates give you over a length of time and then the carbohydrates are obviously what your body’s breaking down immediately into energy. So that allows me to hold on and not have to snack during the hour and 15, hour and a half [of the competition], typically eating two to three hours before the event.”

While this is what works for her, Weisz is keen to stress that this is a diet tailored to her needs. 

“Somebody might eat a bowl of fruit and yoghurt and find that their energy levels are perfect, their focus levels are perfect, but somebody else might be better off with toast or something like that…

“I actually can’t shoot after a big meal, or not shoot as well… so it might look [for me] like a smoothie and protein powders or something that’s a little bit lighter or just a smaller meal, where other people might have no problem with eating something really heavy before competition.”

Alison Weisz: Hungry for success at Paris 2024

Weisz’s position as world champion will see her installed as one of the favourites for gold at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. And the preparation is already in full swing in her current role with the US Army Marksmanship Unit.

“My job with the US Army Marksmanship Unit is to compete and train like it’s my full-time job,” she explained, before detailing her daily routine that includes a nutritious breakfast (of course) followed by a combination of live firing and dry firing, and even incorporates the use of a scat laser training system to analyse her every shot and movement.

And if she is chosen for the US team for the Paris Olympics, the 27-year-old will be eager to put all of the physical, mental and nutritional knowledge she has gained to the test as she aims to repeat her world championships successes on the biggest sporting stage of all.

“I want to be standing on top of the podium with a medal in my hand. I’ve obviously shown myself some possibilities that I am one of the best in the world after the World Championships last year, and I know that it can be anyone’s game once you get to the Olympics, because we’re all the best in the world there. But I would love to be on top and come out with a medal.”