Shooting: Gold the only target in Stanton's sights

By DAVID LEGGAT

It's rare to hear an athlete admit that missing out on a trip to an Olympic Games was a good thing.

So put Nadine Stanton in that rare category. The Hamilton double trap shooter was nominated for the Sydney Games four years ago but missed the cut. Glum, downcast, time to put the gun away? No fear.

"I thought to myself: I got this far this quickly so it's worth persevering, at least until Athens anyway," she said. "I'm now quite grateful I didn't get to Sydney because I'd have fallen flat on my face due to a lack of experience. Now I've done a lot of international work and it doesn't faze me at all."

Stanton is one of just two shooters to qualify for Athens, the other being Levin smallbore marksman Ryan Taylor.

She did so in some style. The qualifying mark was 103 targets out of 120. Stanton bagged 114 at the North Island north zone championships in December, then 108 at the New Zealand clay target championships in February, both achieved in Hamilton.

She is the first woman to have won the national title in any clay target discipline. Understandably by the end of the championships she was "pretty well buzzing".

The top qualifier for the final six medal shootoff at the Sydney Games was 112, so the 28-year-old fulltime student will arrive in Athens in August armed with the knowledge that she has the talent to be right in the hunt for a podium finish.

But to start at the start ...

"My dad and grandfather did a bit of clay target shooting. It was a really social atmosphere and I was a bit of a tomboy, daddy's little girl. One day he put a gun in my hand and said, 'Shoot those'."

Two years later, at 15, Stanton made her first New Zealand team. She showed talent from the start and remembers with a laugh that "the guys didn't like losing to a girl, but they had to get used to it".

That was what is known as down the line shooting, the standard clay target form of competition. Stanton's specialty is the double trap, where two targets fly out simultaneously from different angles. Doubly difficult, doubly challenging.

She put the gun away at 17, but six years later in 1998 she realised there was a chance of a trip to the Olympics in two years so got back into competition in the more difficult Olympic disciplines.

"I decided I liked double trap better. I figured I was a good shooter, why shouldn't I give it a try. I put in a qualifying score for Sydney but I wasn't selected."

There was no space under the quota system for a women's double trap shooter and her scores were not quite enough to bump out another shooter in a different discipline.

At the Manchester Commonwealth Games, she picked up a gold medal in the pairs double trap with Auckland's Teresa Borrell and a silver in the individual event. Delight at the former - which was a surprise - but not so chuffed with the solo effort, where she was pipped by a gifted 15-year-old from England, Charlotte Kerwood.

Still there was a valuable lesson picked up - don't forget to eat.

"I was so determined and hyped up that I was going to kick everyone's butt to win that I completely forgot to eat. When I shot my third round I hadn't eaten for over six hours. My blood-sugar dropped and I dropped too many targets to recover from.

"I learned a hard lesson: motivation and determination are one thing but if you don't eat you can't apply it."

Stanton was in Greece for a World Cup meet last month. She describes the Markopoulo complex in Athens as "functional" but reckons by the time it's finished it will be special.

The oddest thing about it is that the course is situated right under the flight path to Athens airport.

"The planes have already got their landing gear down when they come over the top of you. You can put your gun up and see the plane flying out of the end of your barrel. Not the most ideal situation."

Stanton's biggest problem will be her preparation. She doesn't expect to have any high-quality competition between now and the Games. She is hoping to spend some time training in Australia but the key will be how quickly she adjusts to Athens in the days leading up to her competition.

And the critical ingredient to being a successful marksman? In a word, discipline.

"Being able to do things repeatedly, not let outside things distract you. You already know how to hit every target, so it's what you allow yourself to get distracted by or allow yourself to think about that takes you away from hitting the target."

And Stanton's strength?

"Dogged determination. I never give up. You've got to have a bit of a mongrel in you ... . I've found the Aussies have a bit more of right attitude. They go out to win.

"It sounds awful but New Zealanders have this participation thing. You don't go somewhere like the Olympics to participate, you go to win. I have absolute belief I am capable of shooting a gold medal score."

Stanton has a saying her mother, Dianne, told her which she keeps near the front of her mind: "Shoot for the moon because even if you miss you land among the stars."

"I thought it very appropriate. The gold has always been my plan. I wouldn't have got back into the sport without that medal hanging there to be taken.

"I've always aimed as high as you can possibly go. After I didn't go to Sydney I thought, fine, I've got the talent I might as well use it. What's next? Olympic gold, let's go for it.

"And that's what I've been doing for the past four years."

If you're looking for a smoking gun, so to speak, to win a medal in Athens, look no farther than the Markopoulo complex on August 18.

NADINE STANTON

* Born: Hamilton, 11/9/75.

* Education: Fraser High School.

* Job: Prime Minister's scholarship, fulltime engineering student.

* National titles: New Zealand open champion 2004; New Zealand ladies double trap champion 1999-2004.

* Games record: 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, won gold medal in pairs double trap with Teresa Borrell; silver in individual double trap.

* What will happen in Athens: The double trap consists of 120 targets in three rounds, 20 pairs in a round, 60 pairs in total. Targets come from three stations, flying at different angles. The top six go into the medal shootoff, consisting of a further 20 pairs.