KEY POINTS:
He's the quiet man who blasted some respectability into New Zealand's wayward Melbourne Commonwealth Games shooting campaign.
And now Graeme Ede has readjusted his sights for the Olympics.
The 48-year-old agricultural contractor from Canterbury has parked his hedge-trimming tractor in the shed for a month, conscious his livelihood goes on hold while he chases his trap shooting dream in Beijing.
Ede took a year off after his golden 2006 triumph at Melbourne to weigh up the merits of continuing to pull the trigger.
"It would have probably been good to carry on while I was at the top of my game and shot the world championships that year," Ede told NZPA.
"But shooting does take a lot of my finances away. I had to sit back and think about whether to have a crack at my first Olympics. In the end I just had to."
Ede won one of just four New Zealand medals in 40 shooting events at Melbourne, a return well below the expectations of Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc) which subsequently downgraded the sport's funding.
Less money means even more of a stretch for Ede, who shoots away $200 in a typical practice session thanks to the rising cost of clay targets and ammunition.
"The guys I'm up against, all they do is shoot seven days a week. I have to balance it between family, work and sport," he said.
"At an event like this you can't worry about that though. It's just about keeping it as simple as possible and not being swallowed up too much by the atmosphere.
"You stay in your own little bubble. It's not the other competitors who are beating you, it's you."
Ede, the second-oldest of New Zealand's 182 Games athletes behind eventer Mark Todd, recently shot at World Cups in Germany and Serbia and spent 10 days training with the Australian team in Darwin.
A community fundraiser evening in Southbridge before leaving for Beijing last week raised $3000. Locals appreciated the recitals of Colin Patterson, a retired North Canterbury farmer-turned-poet of note.
Ede only just scraped through Olympic qualifying. Needing to score at least 119 out of 125 in his last two qualifying shoots, he managed 119 and 120.
It was a relief after his attempts to qualify for the Athens Olympics four years ago fell one point short.
He is used to tight finishes. His Melbourne win came in a three-way shoot-off after finishing tied on 138 out of 150, although better will almost certainly be needed this weekend.
All of New Zealand's four shooters will step up in the first week of competition.
On Saturday China-born Yang Wang will contest the men's 10m air pistol, an event in which he finished well below expectations in fifth at Melbourne.
Wang was a member of the Chinese national shooting programme before emigrating to Auckland in 2003 and is now coached by New Zealand shooting great Greg Yelavich.
Nadine Stanton is a double trap specialist but only the single trap is available to contest at these Games on Monday.
She won double trap gold at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and made the finals at the Athens Olympics four years ago.
Robert Eastham, 19, is a virtual rookie to the men's 50m prone rifle which he will contest on Friday next week.
He made his international debut just nine months ago when he won the junior title at the Oceania championships.
- NZPA
