Youngster beats odds

Dargaville 10-year-old Jayten Tairua's positive attitude has allowed him to achieve  a lot in his short and tumultuous life.
Born with the liver disease biliary atresia, where bile accumulates in the organ and eventually deteriorates, he needed a liver transplant as a 2-year-old.
Tairua received his new liver in Brisbane and although he was sick for several years, he has emerged healthy, athletic and active.
Recently Tairua returned from a successful campaign at the biannual World Transplant Games on the Gold Coast.
His  mother, Priscilla Neho said it was an invaluable experience for the natural, "fluky" competitor.
"Jayten just loves sport and it was an opportunity for him to meet other kids who had been in the same boat  - it was the first time Jayten had met other kids who have had transplants."
Tairua claimed gold in the singles 9-11 years table tennis; silver in the 9-11 years cricket ball throw; silver in the singles ten-pin bowling event and sixth in the 50m sprint for 9-11 year-old boys.
It was the first time a New Zealand junior team had ever been sent to the games and Tairua joined three other liver-transplant recipients to form the four-strong Kiwi junior contingent.
All of the 2000 competitors (juniors and seniors) at the games had received a lifesaving organ and were on a regime of immunosupressant medication, although they had to be fit to participate, Neho said.
"He just loved it ... the kids didn't go around asking what transplant they had done, or what scars they had ... all the kids knew everyone had transplants and they just enjoyed each other's company," Neho said.
While Tairua's greatest strengths lay in table tennis, the juniors were also encouraged to try ten-pin bowling.
After Tairua's grandparents Dennis and Queenie Hobson made a few enquiries at Whangarei Ten-Pin Bowling Centre, Tairua, a complete novice,  was soon being guided by former NZ ten-pin bowling team coach Barry Lynch, of Mangawhai.
Lynch coaches junior and senior bowlers on Wednesdays at Whangarei and said when he was asked to assist Tairua he was only too happy to help out.
"After half an hour he was swinging the ball like he had been doing it for years ... to have someone so keen is a darn pleasure," Lynch said.
In three sessions, Tairua improved so much he claimed silver at the games wearing new shoes and using a ball donated to him by the bowling centre.
Following his success at the games, Tairua  will defend his table tennis title at the next world games in 2011 in Sweden.
Meanwhile, he hopes  coach Lynch can further improve his bowling and he will continue  his training at Northland Table Tennis Club.