Archery: Turner targets Aussie triumph

Mykel Turner has his eye firmly fixed on the target. The 16-year-old Tauranga youngster is one of five Bay of Plenty archers taking on the Aussies in the biennial transtasman youth archery challenge at Smallbone Park.

Turner is part of a 13-man New Zealand squad competing over the five-day tournament which got under way on Monday with a practice round.

Australia are the current holders of the transtasman cup - but Turner, who is joining the team for the first time, is confident they can take the trophy back. It has been four years since New Zealand last held the trophy.

"I've been steadily increasing my scores, which have been going up slowly. It's going to be fun. I just want to kick some Aussie butts.

"Nothing can really prepare you for [the New Zealand team] no amount of training or talking. When you get out there it's a whole different kettle of fish. I'm just going to focus and do my best."

The participants are vying for points in the singles, team play and mixed events, with all points going towards their country's overall score. The targets for this week's tournament ranged between 30m and 90m in distance and each archer will fire 240 arrows a day.

Turner's average at the shorter distance (30m) was a credible 314 points out of 400.

The home-schooled student, who has been competing for four years, said the New Zealand team were feeling confident about taking on their Aussie counterparts.

"It's a good team and everyone gets on really well together."

New Zealand team manager Mike Ashburn said there was a good mixture of experience and youth within the team and he was impressed with the skills Turner was showing.

"Mykel is a good solid shot, he works really hard on his training, he can shoot some really high scores. He has been known to shoot some excellent scores. We are hoping he is going to perform well at this competition."

Ashburn said this year's competition would be tight in the two classes of bows being used in the tournament - the compound (bows with pulleys) and the recurve (bows without pulleys).

"I think it will be pretty even. We are shooting on average pretty much the same [as the Australians]. We tend to be stronger in the compound archers but our recurve archers have the ability to shoot some pretty high scores."

The manager said this tournament would help develop Turner into a stronger competitor in the future.

"I think it's a good learning experience for him. He has shot quite a lot of tournaments in New Zealand. So he got a couple of years of good, solid tournament experience at a high level of competition."

Entry is free to the public, with the tournament finishing on Friday.