History-making shooter has sights on Moscow

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 12

History-making shooter has sights on Moscow

By

BOB SCHUMACHER

Rex Davies, who shot his way to the top of the New Zealand smallbore rifle shooting championships at the Burnett range last week-end, makes no secret of his main ambiion: “I would love to go ) Moscow.”

Davies, a cheerful hristchurch salesman, vas referring to the Olympic Games in that :ity next year, and had the smallbore nominations been made after the national championships, his main concern would simply have been who would tccompany him. New Zealand has a splendid international record in smallbore competition and more than 60 of the country’s top marksmen competed last week-end, which made Davies’ performance — winning all three major national championships — even more meritorious.

Davies became the first shooter to win the 50m title and aggregate in successive years and his clear-cut "victory in the 50yd and 100 yd capped off two days of magnificent shooting by him. Experienced marksmen such as Brian Lacey and lan Ballinger were unable to

remember anyone emulating that feat. Certainly it cannot be bettered.

Davies, aged 48, had a late and unusual introduction to the sport. He arrived home from work one evening to learn that his son, Murray, a high school student, had gone shooting. Davies understood that to mean he was out rabbit shooting and because it was dark, he was quite concerned.

In fact, Murray was at the Christchurch East Indoor Smallbore Club with friends from Mairehau participating in a sponsored shoot.

“I had to pick him up and had a shot while at the range,” recalled Mr Davies. As his son was progressing well, Davies bought a family membership and quickly had his own eye trained on the bull.

That was in 1969 and the same year Davies won the Canterbury C grade indoor championship. His job took him to the North Island and he adopted the theme of “have rifle, will travel.” He was in the north for three months and during that time he won the 1969 North Island C grade title. Meanwhile his son had surrendered shooting for karting. In 1970, Davies was transferred to Auckland and it was in that city that he had his first attempt at outdoor smallbore shooting. In 1971, he was starting to compile some good scores without winning any of the big events.

The following year was the last for Davies in Auckland but he made an impact before his departure. “I had a clean-up in indoor competitions and was runner-up in the postal outdoor aggregate, beaten by a point or two.”

But that year gave him one of his biggest thrills. He was named in the North Island indoor and outdoor teams for the inter-island contest — “It is always hard to make those teams” — and while “I did nothing startling, I did nothing too wrong at the championships that year in Christchurch.” Davies returned to Christchurch in 1973 and became deeply involved in the sport. “While in Auckland I had kept in contact and conferred with lan Ballinger. He taught me technique and advised me what to do — I still do what he says,” said Davies in paying tribute to the man who won the bronze medal in smallbore shooting at the 1968 Mexico Olympics.

In 1974, Davies was selected in the New Zealand Dewar Cup team of 20 for the international postal

contest for the first time. “That was the highlight of my career at that point, I was rapt to make it.” The same year he was selected for regional trials, a preliminary round before the final national squad of trialists was chosen for the Christchurch Commonwealth Games. He failed to make the New Zealand trialists. At the national championships in Christchurch in 1975, Davies failed by a point to win his first New Zealand title. Over the 50m range he was initially marked equal first with Robin Carrington (Auckland) on points, and the title would have been Davies’ on a count-back of central bulls. But the cards were remarked and Davies had one of his shots counted out. He finished second and that lost point also cost him the national aggregate. He confessed to feeling somewhat sour but

gained satisfaction with his selection in the 10man team for the Canadian international postal shoot.

By now, Davies was recognised as one of the best in his sporting field. In 1976, he won the Canterbury master grade indoor championship, a hard-fought competition in which he was to finish runner-up the next year and to win again in 1978. That year he also earned selection in the final 11 for national trials to decide the nominations for the Montreal Olympic Games. However, he made a bad start and although he improved from ninth to fifth in the final standings it was, in his own words, “a rattling finish, but too late.” Success in the New Zealand outdoor postal aggregate was Davies’ most significant result in 1977, but the bullets really started to find their mark last year. At the 1978 national championships in Wanganui, Davies was five points behind the double Commonwealth Games representative, Lacey, after the first series of 20 shots. However, he kept consistently hitting the bull and after a further 40 shots, Davies discovered that he had won his first New Zealand title —- the 50m championship. After that win, his mentor, Ballinger, told Davies to set his sights on ths

aggregate. “Until then I had always been thinking 50m, the" 50yd and 100 yd ranges had never been my forte,” he recalled.

But like an obedient servant, Davies took heed of the words from his master, finished fifth in the championship, and claimed the grand aggregate by’ a couple of central bulls from the unsuccessful 1976 Olympic nominee, Lindsay Arthur (Hutt Valley). “I was up in the clouds.”

Although last year provided Davies with his first New Zealand championship, it also gave him his biggest disappointment. He was aiming for a place in the Commonwealth Games team for Edmonton, but could not shoot a qualifying score to get beyond the regioanl trials.

“I was not mentally prepared. It was just one of those things. I felt that if I had got in the final national trial I could have

made it. That I never had a go was my biggest disappointment.”

This year, Davies, possibly with the thought of a trip to Moscow in the back of his mind, has bought the most modern of rifles and equipment. A new rifle and a batteryoperated highly sensitive electric trigger cost him about $l5OO.

But the expense has already justified itself to Davies after an impressive opening to the year. He lost “a skinny one” and was beaten by a point by Jack Scott (Timaru), a 1 9 7 4 Commonwealth Games representative, in the South Island 50m championship, but seemed certain of victory in the South Island 50yd and 100 yd championship with just one bullet to be fired. Davies only needed a nine from the possible 10 to beat Ballinger for the title, but he was let down not so much by his sensitive trigger as by his own nonchalance. Davies reeled off a series of bulls while the flags were idle, but they fluttered briskly when he had only one shot to fire. With ample time remaining, Davies decided to wait for the flags to become still. Several times the flags eased and Davies raised his rifle to his shoulder: as soon as he did that they flapped madly. The two-minute warning signal took Davies by sur-

prise. 'T must have been dreaming; I thought the rifle was at my shoulder. Instead, its butt was resting on the ground, I touched the trigger and fired into the sky.” That was a possible 10 points wasted and probably the title, but Davies has made no such error since. The week before the national championships this year, Davies was admitted to hospital for a series of tests that left him jaded after spending four days and a half there.

He left hospital six days before the championships were to begin. During the week he went alone to the range for practice. “I fired 20 shots for 100 and 99, but at the end of those shots I felt like a tired old man. I sat in the bay for 10 minutes before I could put the rifle away and I was trembling.” But with his early form so good he was determined to make it. He competed in the Canterbury championship on the day before the nationals, and, although well behind the leaders in that event, it served its purpose “to iron out the kinks.”

The rest is now history. Davies read the unpredictable crosswinds at the Burnett range supremely well over the two days. He saw others with beautiful groupings then firing a couple of eights as the wind increased in a split second.

After his defence of the 50m title, he set himself the target of the national aggregate. “I felt after the 50m and was thinking of scoring a double with the aggregate. My tail was up."

Davies did not expect to win the 50yd and 100 yd title, but he was joint leader after 20 shots over 50yd and his powers of concentration and ability to withstand pressure brought him through the 100 yd range with colours flying. He dropped only five points in 40 shots, won by the commanding margin of five points, and took the aggregate by a staggering 10 points. It was an amazing endurance feat by Davies, who still finds it hard to believe that he has won the three coveted titles all in one year when so many capable marksmen have yet to win one of the three championships in 20 years of trying. As Davies commented: ‘‘When it comes to 50m prone competition New Zealand shooters bow their heads to no-one.” He is ready to make an all-out assault for a place in the New Zealand Olympic Games team to Moscow and, while he realises there will be many trials before the nominations are announced, he can rest assured that his astounding feats of this month will not be readily forgotten.