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Greg Yeavich, 53, remembers how back in 1986 when he shot in the pistol events at his first Commonwealth Games, him and his manager had needed to go looking for scores and check if they'd won, and it took a week for letters commending his feat to reach Edinburgh.
This last week as the veteran New Zealand shooter won another silver in the centrefire pairs event with team-mate Alan Earle, he couldn't stop being amazed at how within seconds the scoreboard flashed their winning numbers and as soon as he'd switched on his cell-phone, half a dozen texts beeped in congratulation. "Shooting - the sport, as I knew it at my first Commonwealth games has changed beyond recognition. It's funny because I've not changed as a shooter," he says, pointing to the same Walther GSP weapon he used 24 years ago.
While every shot fired was followed diligently by the partisan crowd, Yeavich and partner Earle gave up looking at the scores altogether. "It would've added to the stress. So I simply gave up and glanced up after the final shot," he said after competition.
The Kiwi shooters with their laidback nature and amateur set-ups back home are in sharp contrast to India's ultra-competitive medal-demanding programmes, and there's no Rs 20 lakh giant-cheques waiting back home even if they take home medals. "New Zealanders don't travel much since there's no funding, and shooting is almost a social outing, where we get guns along," he says, adding, "and at Games like these, that are good opportunities to travel to a new country, we end up by-the-way winning a medal." There was little of the pre-Games frenzy at home when he left Auckland either. "My family thinks of shooting as my second job," says the maker of plastic-kayakas back home, adding that his wife simply greeted his call of a silver-medal with a 'yeah, ok'.
They call themselves shooting hobbyists, and their CWG preparation starts a little under a year before the event. "And then in the lead-up season, we train a little more than nothing," Yeavich laughs, adding that he last shot his best score of 589 in 1990, but always backs himself to land at a medal if he turns up at a competition venue. "It's a good excuse to travel. A medal is a bonus," adds the 7-Games veteran.
For Alan, a locksmith minus the 15-days when he heads to the Games - coming for his 4th CWG, what makes his eyes widen in surprise is India's assembly-line of shooters. "And there's a fresh, young batch always. Only Samresh remains from the older shooters, otherwise your system produces new talent every season," he says, even as he goes from one Games to next hoping to run into familiar figures, while the competitors around him change every year. "Back home we keep waiting for someone to come through the door and dislodge us, but no one has and we keep shooting and winning occasionally," he says. They might be aiming for the same bull-eye but shooters in the two countries stand on two diametric ends of the spectrum.
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