Taggart storms into semi-finals

/

Northern Ireland’s Claire Taggart has stormed into the semi-finals at the World Boccia European Championships in Seville while a further two players from the British squad guaranteed a place in the quarter finals.

The World number two from Larne has annihilated the competition in the individual pool matches. She beat Chantal Van Engelen of the Netherlands 7-1, then sent Greece’s Dionysia Tsakiri packing 6-1 and saw off Slovakia’s Kristina Kudlacova 8-0:

“I’m delighted to win my third match of the group and progress through to the semi-finals. I’ve been working hard since Tokyo and it’s paid off,” said Taggart.

Claire Taggart smiles as she sails into semi-finals

She will now play in the first-ever female only European Championship semi-final as the rules recently changed, which opens more medal opportunities for female boccia players.

In the BC3s, Scott McCowan and Will Arnott will tomorrow battle it out for a place in the quarter finals. McCowan – who finished fourth at the Tokyo Paralympics - took a 7-1 victory over Alejandro Morillas Parra of Spain and subsequently lost on tie-break to Italy’s Mirco Garavaglia. However, he still tops the group.

Arnott – who makes his championship debut for Boccia UK in Seville – controlled his opening game to a 7-1 win over Germany’s Thomas Knoth. He today held his own against World Champion Grigorios Polychronidis, losing 4-3.

Meanwhile, Beth Moulam is safely through to the quarter finals. Despite losing her opener to tournament favourite Sonia Heckel of France 4-1, she today put on a strong 6-0 display against Norway’s Elisabeth Wilhelmsen.

Beth Moulam smiles as she qualifies for quarter finals

Steph McGuire and David Smith play their final pool matches but Boccia UK Performance Director Helen Nicholls says that both are in a strong position to escape the pool stages:

“Steph and David are highly experienced players and we expect them to come through strongly tomorrow. Some of the groups here are small and it’s a real skill to escape the pool stages. Losing one match can put you in a very difficult position but that’s what we train for and that’s elite sport.”

McGuire has already won his first two matches and currently tops the group. He triumphed over the Czech Republic’s Ondrej Kaas 9-1 and then followed up with a 3-1 win over Andrii Okulov of the Ukraine. He is now set to face Portugal’s Manuel Cruz.

There was a surprise upset for top seed and Paralympic Champion David Smith in his opening match. Facing the newly reclassified Nikolas Anozov of Russia, Britain’s best-ever boccia player lost 3-6. He plays tomorrow and needs to win in order to progress further. He is drawn against Croatia’s Martin Frkovic.

Will Hipwell missed to escape the pool matches on a one point difference on countback to Russia’s Dmitry Kozmin. It followed a 4-1 victory over Marco Dekker of the Netherlands:

“I’m disappointed I wasn’t able to capitalise on the momentum from winning yesterday. However, I have taken a lot of good learning points from the game which I will use to improve in future tournaments.”

He is now looking ahead to the Team and Pairs event which start on Monday.