Shooting: Stanton misses medal after promising start

By MARK GEENTY

Nadine Stanton sizzled in the Athens heat as her Olympic trap shooting gold medal charge went down in blaze of glory in Athens yesterday.

Stanton, of Hamilton, finished sixth out of six in the final of the women's double trap with a final score of 137 points, nine adrift of gold medallist Kimberly Rhode of the United States who won her second Olympic gold.

It all looked so promising for the effervescent Stanton, who reeled off a top third round of 38 points out of a possible 40 to qualify fourth for the final. It was New Zealand's first chance at a medal at a quiet Games for the 151-strong team to date.

Going in to the 50-target final, Stanton was just two points adrift of Rhode and in with a real medal hope.

"I've proved my point (that I was good enough to be here). It is incredibly satisfying. I've said right from the word go I'm coming here to medal. You don't come here to participate, you come here to win," said Stanton, who won silver in the same event at the Manchester Commonwealth games two years ago.

"Naturally I'm a bit disappointed, but I think I did pretty well for myself, quite frankly."

Clad in shorts and the New Zealand black vest, Stanton admitted the sweltering Athens afternoon was a struggle as she dealt with sweaty palms.

The final was the worst of her four rounds, scoring just 29 out of 40 to be five points off a bronze.

"That's where the black uniform doesn't help really, especially black leather," she said.

New Zealand's only previous Olympic shooting medal was a bronze won by Ian Ballinger in the smallbore rifle in Mexico City in 1968.

Stanton began confidently in the final, hitting her first four targets, but it all went awry when the trap only released one clay target, disrupting her concentration.

It happened once more, and again she followed up with a miss.

"If you're shooting well they shouldn't put you off, but unfortunately both those times they put me off."

Tempering Stanton's joy at making the final in the field of 15 was the fact this event won't be part of the Olympics again.

Stanton will have to switch to her less preferred single trap for the next Olympics in Beijing. Meantime she will go back to being a cash-strapped student and try to complete her engineering degree at Waikato University.

She paid tribute to her Auckland-based coach Gavin Paton, who wasn't part of the official New Zealand team but was flown over especially just before the event.

"It was awesome to have him here, he made all the difference.

"From my scores in training yesterday, you would never have picked me to be in the final, so I owe it all to him."

- NZPA