Ava Irving-Staley ended up with three golds in the Rifle Shooting competition at the NAIG.

“It feels amazing. Out of this world.”

She won the 3P 19U Female competition on Wednesday, scoring 771 points.

Then Thursday, she won the Prone 19U Female competition with 505 points.

To top off her outstanding NAIG, she was awarded the overall 19U Female gold with a combined 1,276 points.

Irving-Staley said she came close to matching the male shooters scores.

“I’m just a bit behind the highest scoring male. So I’m really happy with the results.

“It’s definitely something I wasn’t expecting. Just because I’m really new to the sport. I haven’t really had any experience with rifle shooting. I’ve only really been to one other outside competition in Tabor, Alberta.

“I’m still in the process of learning lots and just trying to get the most improvement I can.”

Irving-Staley did have her challenges on the way to her overall title.

“I did end up cross-firing in the second round, which was really scary, because if you crossfire you can sometimes get a zero.

“I was positioned in Lane eight and for some reason, I thought I was in Lane nine. So when you’re looking at your gun, in your sights, you don’t always see the full picture. You’re just looking at your target. You’re really zooming in and you’re aiming for that one so it can be really easy to crossfire, especially if you’re in competition mode, just in the zone.”

The day before, Irving-Staley had been in Lane 9.

“I wasn’t really paying attention when he was assigning lanes and afterwards I shot all my prone, which is 20 bullets and prone is the position where you can get a lot of points, because you’re laying down and have more stability.

“So I really thought I was done for. Luckily they counted half the points and because my groups were so good, it didn’t it end up affecting me that much.”

Irving-Staley managed to make up for it with her standing and kneeling results.

“I managed to pull it together again and get back into the game.

“I really wasn’t expecting to get gold every time but yeah, it kind of feels like a dream.”

Irving-Staley said she noticed a difference in her shooting at the games.

“I did notice a massive improvement. I would say this is so far the best I have ever shot.”

She pointed to her background in biathlon as a key to her success.

She said she started in grade six. She’s been doing biathlon for six or seven years now.

“It’s definitely helped a lot because it’s very similar in some ways.

“Going to the range twice a week for seven, eight, years it pays off right?

“All my coaches, they’ve been with me since I was really young, just starting out. And I’m really thankful and grateful that I had such knowledgeable people in the community helping me out like that. That really helps.”

Two of those coaches are her parents, Trena Irving and Peter Staley.

“They’ve also been super-supportive over the years always driving me to practice, buying new equipment, buying the ammo, making sure I’m signed up and I have my PAL.

“Then they took over rifle shooting. They ran that and organized that. I don’t know if we would have had a team if it wasn’t for them. I’m really grateful that I had that opportunity as well.”

She added she wanted to thank Rebecca Parnum, Nick Marnik, Ted Hupe and Tracy Hutton for their support with her biathlon training.

Irving-Staley also got help from an unexpected source at NAIG, Team B.C.’s coach, Curtis Smecher.

“Even though he has athletes competing with me, he still came over and gave me a lot of advice for free and just out of the kindness of his heart. That really touched my soul. I was like ‘Wow, this is really nice of you to be giving me all these tips on breathing technique, alignment,’ the stuff that I was able to put into practice and I definitely noticed an improvement in my shooting.”

Irving-Staley also listed maintaining concentration as a big challenge.

“You’ve got to be relaxed. You can’t be too stressed out. And you can’t let cross firing or a bad shot or bad aiming affect you, you’ve got to just move on to the next shot. And especially at higher stakes when you know you’re up for a medal.”

As for memories of the games, Irving-Staley has those too.

“It’s really a supportive environment. Everyone is out to help each other. And everyone wants to socialize, have fun. I’ve just been connecting with these amazing people. Making connections with people all across Canada, in America as well.

“I’ve made lots of friends and I’m really loving the supportive environment because not all sports are like that, and especially at higher levels.

“It’s really an amazing experience.”

Irving Staley wants to pursue rifle shooting in the future, and possibly even coaching the sport.