Boccia athletes and staff honoured at 2025 PLx Awards

The Olympic and Paralympic high-performance community last night came together to celebrate a year of extraordinary sporting moments at the 2025 PLx Awards. And Boccia UK received the award for Spirit of High Performance.

Sally Kidson, Connor Welfare and coach Lauren Kianchehr demonstrated extraordinary resilience, unity and inspiration following the tragic and unexpected death of team-mate Will Arnott soon after he represented ParalympicsGB at Paris 2024. He was Sally’s BC3 Pairs partner.

Sally, Connor and lauren win spirit of high performance uk award - with Stef Reid MBE and Emma Wiggs. 

In honour of his legacy, and despite their grief, they committed to continuing in the sport, working together in partnership, and this culminated in Sally and ramp operator Connor winning a gold medal at the 2025 European Championships. It was the first time Sally had won a major title.

Sally said: “This isn’t just an award for the three of us – it's for the four of us. Will empowered my career, he inspired it and was a big supporter. I had some conversations at the start of this year about potentially retiring or taking a prolonged break and I decided to carry on. Will was a big believer in keeping going, no matter what. You want to get the results for yourself but I take a photo of him every time I’m on the podium and he will always be with me throughout my career.” 

boccia uk’s will arnott, who died in december 2024.

Meanwhile, Sophie Newnham, 17, was a finalist in the Athlete award which recognises the biggest turnaround or breakthrough in the last year. It’s the latest achievement in a year in which Sophie has won medals at every tournament she has entered. She also finishes the 2025 international season by moving into the number one spot in the world rankings.

The annual event was hosted in Leeds, where nine award winners from the sector across Olympic and Paralympic sports were celebrated by their peers. The Awards are part of PLx, the annual conference for leaders from the high-performance community to connect, collaborate and learn.