By Rhonda Bartle

A shooting star

Nadine Stanton, sharp shooter, was living in New Plymouth when she won both gold and silver at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. 

She moved to Hamilton for one reason – to make training for the 2004 Olympics easier.

'I still wish I lived in New Plymouth,' she says. 'I only moved to Hamilton to make the training easier for the Olympic Games.  It was getting tough driving to Hamilton every weekend.'

It was also getting expensive. At $200 per training session for petrol, targets and ammunition, money was important.  Shooting is a very expensive sport.

A sharp-eyed girl

Stanton uses a gun to obliterate small spinning objects that fly out of a trench around 130kms an hour. 

If you say 'pull, bang' as fast as you can, that's how fast she shoots them.  When she hits her first target, it's about 8mts off the ground. 

Though her favourite event is the double trap, she's had to switch to single trap in the hope of competing in the next Olympics in Beijing in 2008, after the international Olympics committee for women's shooting removed the double trap from the list.

'They went purely on numbers and women's double trap and 10m running target were cut from the program.  I had only been training in double trap for 4 or 5 years, so I switched to single trap as it's still on the commonwealth programme.'

An outstanding success at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Stanton won both gold and silver in women's double trap and was chosen to compete at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Despite turning on a stunning performance - becoming New Zealand's best-performing Olympic shooter since Ian Ballinger won a bronze medal in 1968 and beating her previous best - she didn't quite pick up a medal.

'I had a decent shot at a medal,' she says. 'I needed to pull out one more big one but it just didn't happen at the end.'

Beijing, here she comes!

Stanton is determined to make up for it at Beijing and at 29 she's a long way from her use-by date. 

'The woman who got 6th place in Athens in the single trap was 56.  I'm not going to retire until I get a gold medal. I blew my chance in Athens, but I'll be there at Beijing in 2008.'

Though she still has to make international standards to go she's '99% confident I will be there. At this stage, I don't think anyone will knock me off my power.'

If her latest performance is anything to go by, she'll be a major medal contender. 'I went to Melbourne a couple of weeks ago, where we had the commonwealth shooting champs. 

'It was very much a trial for the commonwealth games, with all the same events.  We sent a big shooting team over and across pistol and shotgun I was best-performing person there and came home with 4 medals.'

A crack shot

Yet the first time she picked up a gun, it was hardly love at first sight.  Stanton says she did it to please somebody else. 

'I was 13 and it was at the Thunderbird club, here in Hamilton. I hated it. But I was Daddy's little girl, so I persevered and six months down the track I began to get the hang of it.'

Less than a year later, she'd beaten her father and most of the other men in the club and just 18 months after her first shot, she made her first national team.

'It wasn't until I was right into it, I realised I had the knack. After I figured out what I was doing, I was away.'

Her mum and dad are still her main support team, she says.  'I managed to get my mum to the commonwealth games, thanks to the generosity of hundreds of people.  The smile on my mother's face when I won the medals was wonderful.'

Though Stanton says winning Commonwealth gold was something of a surprise, she found herself disappointed with the silver.

'I had expected to win.  It wasn't until later that I realised I hadn't actually eaten for six hours.  I had no nerves.  I was as confident as hell, but I was trying to keep my focus and I forgot to eat. 

'My first and second rounds were good, but my third – I just went kaput. I didn't have any food in my system.'

Life versus sport

Right now, Stanton is juggling life as a competitive athlete with that of being a cash-strapped student studying for an Engineering degree.

'It's become a combination of full-time, part-time, no time.  I probably won't be able to study first semester next year because that's when the Commonwealth games are on. My degree will probably take five years, ' she says.

But due to her good performance at the last Olympics, she has received some extra financial help to continue training.

'On a student allowance, I'm most grateful. My current financial position is that my rent is covered, I'm being fed, but I don't have disposable income.'

New Zealand is currently witnessing a great surge of junior shooters coming through the ranks, something Stanton sees as a healthy sign for the sport's future. 

'A lot of good people are starting things going in schools, including my coach, Gavin Paton and his wife.  Shooting is good for focussing emotions and concentration and parents often say it has other beneficial effects.'

And will she be coming back to Taranaki anytime soon?

'Once I've done my degree, if there was work, I'd be back in flash.'