Shooting: Brilliant teenager just pips Stanton

By DANIEL GILHOOLY

A 15-year-old from England denied Nadine Stanton her second gold medal on what proved to be a disappointing session for New Zealand at the Bisley range yesterday.

Stanton won silver when she really wanted gold, while major hopefuls such as Stephen Petterson, Tania Corrigan, Jocelyn Lees and Greg Yelavich fell short of their targets on a day that had promised plenty.

Most notable was Petterson, who could not win his third consecutive 50m prone rifle gold medal, finishing fourth in a strong, 40-man field.

Stanton, 26, will return to New Plymouth with two medals, adding her silver in the women's double trap singles competition to the doubles gold she won with Teresa Borrell on Sunday.

Her overall score of 134 points out of 160 was eclipsed by the prodigiously talented Charlotte Kerwood, who had a total of 141. Canadian Cynthia Meyer was third with 132.

Kerwood, at 15 the youngest shooter at the Games, trailed Stanton by two points through the first half of competition after the New Zealander recorded an impressive 70 out of 80.

However, Stanton's final qualifying session of 31 out of 40 saw her drop back to a three-point deficit and she then had little chance of catching Kerwood, who shot beyond her years with 37 in the final.

Australian Timothy Lowndes won the 50m prone rifle with a total of 699.8, followed by England's Michael Babb and South African Jaco Henn.

Petterson shot well in the final but could not improve on his fourth placing from the qualifying rounds and totalled 696.3 points, 1.4 behind Henn.

New Zealander Sean McCabe improved one place in the final to finish seventh with 692.7.

Aucklander Petterson, who turned 45 yesterday, said it was always going to be difficult to retain his title for a second time, which would have earned him a record-equalling fifth gold medal.

Corrigan and Lees, who won five medals between them at Kuala Lumpur four years ago and snared a bronze in the 25m pistol pairs on Thursday, could not quite reach the podium in the 10m air pistol yesterday.

Lees was fourth with a total of 474.3, a full two points short of the bronze medal.

Corrigan finished ninth, missing out on the top-eight final on a countback after shooting a score of 370 in qualifying. The event was won by Russian shooter Lalita Yauhleuskaya, now competing for Australia, with 479.4.

In the men's 50m pistol event, Yelavich was 10th, with his score of 538 just three points short of qualifying for the final. Alan Earle was 21st with 507.

Brian Wistrand was 11th in the men's double trap with a score of 128 and team-mate Scott Wilson finished one point back and one place behind.

New Zealand have now snared a medal of each colour at Bisley, but yesterday's results may mean their final haul does not match their high expectations.

- NZPA

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