By ANGELA GREGORY
Teenage archer Eamonn Gaffney is a shooting star.
On most days anyway.
At a competition on the North Shore on Auckland Anniversary Weekend, Eamonn was rueing a cross-wind that made him shoot less than perfectly.
And as an archery perfectionist he was irked.
But a few weeks earlier, the 19-year-old Mt Eden
student wiped the archery field with three firsts in the national competitions at Cambridge.
Eamonn topped the target, match play and clout events in the men's division.
The national president of Archery New Zealand, Phil Woodham, said Eamonn's consistent performance over the past couple of years had put the young competitor into the world ranks.
"If you look at the top 16 world qualifiers, he would be up there somewhere."
Because Eamonn uses a compound bow, rather than the traditional recurve bow, he cannot enter the Olympics.
But he did score among the top 30 archers at the world field championships in Canberra last year.
Eamonn started shooting about six years ago, joining the Auckland club which practises in Cornwall Park.
He trains hard while fitting in studies towards a bachelor of applied science.
"At the moment it is almost an obsession," he says. "I'm into weekend training and trying to break records. It's the pursuit of perfection and enjoyment."
Eamonn's mother was a silver medallist in the 1974 Commonwealth paraplegic games in Dunedin, under her maiden name, Gaylene Harris.
His father, Brendan Gaffney, helps to run Archery Adventures, which makes archery available to school and youth groups.
Mr Gaffney said interest in archery had been boosted by the Lord of the Rings movies.
Eamonn admits he would miss every time if he was trying to shoot a target while riding a horse, but is unimpressed with the screen archers' apparent abilities.
"It's just a good joke from Hollywood."
