JUNIOR SPORT - First shot at contest exceeds expectations

Mangapai shooter Nick Gavin had no idea he was going to do so well in his first international competition.
The Whangarei Boys' High School student placed sixth in the under-21 competition at the recent World Down-the-Line Shooting Championships in Banager, near Galway in Ireland.
"I went over there without any real expectations, especially not to do as well as I did," Nick said.
"I was a bit more nervous than usual because it was the world championships and I'd never been before, and didn't know what to expect. But after a couple of shots it was business as usual."
Nick missed out on the top five and another 50-target round by just one point, finally finishing about 10 points behind the eventual overall winner - 21-year-old Colin Waghorn of Bluff. Natalie Rooney, 20, of Timaru won the women's competition.
"[I did a lot better] than I thought I was going to do, but it was still a bit disappointing to miss out on the top five by just one," he said.
But Nick did bring home a silver medal in the junior teams' competition when he got together with Brendon Malcolm of Rotorua and Cameron Rooney from Timaru.
His only complaint about Ireland was that they missed out on all the New Zealand success at the Olympics.
Irish TV followed the Irish athletes, which largely consisted of their lightweight boxers.
"But I suppose you can't really expect to go to another country and watch the New Zealand team," he laughed.
Nick said the success of 21-year-old Waghorn winning the competition encouraged him to think about the next world championships in South Africa.
"That's something for me to aspire to, usually the world champion is around 40 or 50 [years old]."
Nick said Waghorn's win and the overall Kiwi performance was testament to the standard of competition here, particularly the secondary school shooting.
"All the people we talked to in Ireland were in awe of the school shooting competitions here, because none of them have anything like it, except maybe Western Australia."