James Sullivan competing at the clay target shooting world championships.
James Sullivan competing at the clay target shooting world championships.
At 16, Te Puke’s James Sullivan is New Zealand’s top junior clay target shooter.
He has also just claimed the silver medal in the sport’s junior section of the International Clay Target Shooting Federation World DTL Championships in South Africa, the first New Zealander to place at the world junior championships.
But he isn’t happy with that, saying winning is his motivation to put in the time and effort to improve his performances.
“I didn’t go over there to medal, I went over there to win,” he says. “Coming second was not good.”
“Probably by his own admission, he wasn’t as good as what he would normally shoot and he still managed to get No 2,” says dad Ross. “He also won some events at the South African Championships which were held just before the worlds.”
Normally held every two years, the worldwide pandemic has thrown that schedule out of whack, meaning James will get another crack at the title in the UK next year.
He will also be young enough to give it another shot in Christchurch two years after that.
The decision to go to South Africa was made after James’ outstanding performances in competitions over the last year when he was open age North Island champion and North and South Island Secondary Schools champion. On three occasions he has had more than 300 target-hitting shots in a row in competition, and was just beaten into second place at the national secondary schools championships.
That form has continued and at the open national championships in March he was runner-up in three of the main events - beaten by an Australian in two of them, making him the top Kiwi in those.
James’ first experience of clay target shooting came when he was 10.
James Sullivan with the silver medal he won at the International Clay Target Shooting Federation World DTL championships.
“We’d been looking for a sport for [him] because he’d done a lot of sports and not really got into them,” says Ross. “But he came back and said ‘dad I really enjoyed that’.”
He joined the TECT Park-based Bay of Plenty club, starting in the entry level C grade.
“While there, a man came up to us and introduced himself as Keith Livingstone and said that he thought James had some ability and could he coach him.”
Keith is a former president of the New Zealand Clay Target Shooting Association.
“He put James on the right path with technique and everything that’s required - and from there he’s been fairly successful.”
James is now an AA grade shooter, the highest grade, and he and Ross are members of the Whakatāne club.
He says, to him, shooting now comes naturally.
“You get your gun fit right and everything feels good and all you have to do is look at a target and pull the trigger at the right time.”
Ross says he feels the key is being able to concentrate on the job at hand for a long period of time.
“And James is very good at it. Two competitors will have the same ability and be just as good as each other at hitting the target, but for some reason, it’s the same people that keep winning the competitions.
“It’s like any sport when you get to the highest level, it becomes less about the technique and more about the mental side of it.”
Clay target shooting has various disciplines, with down the line (DTL) being the most common. There are also various competitions within DTL, doubles - with two chances to hit the target - the discipline in which the world championships were held.
Some see DTL as an apprenticeship for International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) which is the Olympic discipline that incorporates skeet and trap shooting.
The speed the target leaves the trap in DTL is around 60km/h - in ISSF is it 120km/h.
