Boccia UK doubles its European medal haul

Boccia UK returns home with six medals from the European Para Championships – the brand new, multi-sport event which has descended on Rotterdam this week.

The medal haul is double that secured two years ago at the Europeans in Seville. Britain also won the most medals of any other nation at the tournament, albeit the squad didn’t win a gold.

It was a tournament of many firsts in which the traditional schedule was ripped up, allowing for back-to-back individual and Team & Pair finals over the weekend. And in another move to attract crowds, the finals took place on outdoor courts in the heart of the city.

Steph and fiona with silver medal

On the final day of competition, Lanarkshire duo Stephen McGuire and Fiona Muirhead secured silver in the BC4 Pairs. It is a relatively new pairing with Muirhead only joining the World Class Programme last year. McGuire – who captained the Pairs – explained:

“If we’d been offered a silver medal before we came out here, we’d have been delighted. We were one of the lower-ranked teams and we came within one end from taking the gold so I’m thrilled. Winning here would have meant automatic qualification for Paris – it was the golden ticket - but we came so close and have had a great season so far. We have two more competitions, in Portugal and then Greece, which will be our final opportunity to qualify. We are in the mix for qualification now which is great whereas at the start of the season we were probably outside the mix.”

And silver by the BC4s was followed up by the BC1/2 Team – made up of Eastleigh star David Smith OBE, who now lives in Swansea, Larne’s Claire Taggart and Papworth Everard’s Will Hipwell – who were unable to overcome hosts, Netherlands, and also return home with silver.

Smith, captain of the trio, said:

“It was just one of those games. We had an opportunity in the first end when I thought we were going to score three and we ended up losing three. It was just the roll of the balls after that. Boccia is like that sometimes. They had the crowd on their side which probably helped, but we played well. We will keep pushing as we want to get gold when we can in tournaments but team sports are quite unpredictable.”

claire, david and will are silver medallists at europeans

In the individual event, GB took a further four medals – two silver and two bronze and arguably the highlight was Will Arnott and ramp assistant Connor Wellfare winning their first major international medal.

On winning silver, Arnott from near Reading said:

“It’s my first major international medal. I’m disappointed about how the final went, I thought I could have played better. I didn’t play with the same sort of commitment. Maybe, I was a bit more tentative about things and I was made to pay for that. The rest of the tournament has been so good for me. I think I’ve been threatening to have a result like this, maybe for four or five years, and to finally get it is really a great experience. This is a huge confidence booster for me at this level of event. This is the biggest event where I’ve earned ranking points by miles.”

will beat paralympic champion adam peska on his way to winning silver

And on playing outside, Will added:

“I really like the idea of playing outside. I think it’s great to get people in to watch the sport though when the wind picked up it was difficult as we both had to take balls off the ramp as they were swaying slightly.”

David Smith also seized silver for Britain, but was unable to defend his title against host favourite Daniel Perez:

 “I am a little bit disappointed,” said Smith. “I had a chance in the second end and if I’d have scored then I think I would have won the game. But it is good for the Dutch crowd that Dan (PEREZ, gold medallist) won. The tournament has been really good. In the Ahoy arena, the atmosphere that was built up was really cool with the noise and all that. We have had a special couple of days. Hopefully, it will help promote Boccia. We are rightly in the Paralympic movement and we are one of the more competitive events so we get a good atmosphere.”

Stephen McGuire also went into the event as defending Champion but was pleased to secure bronze, after coming back from major injury and rehabilitation in 2022. Meanwhile, World Champion Claire Taggart also added to Britain’s medal haul, bagging the bronze after overcoming Christina Goncalves 7-1.

claire won bronze in the individuals

Performance Director Greg Baker said that doubling the medal haul from the previous European Championships demonstrates the progress Boccia UK is making:

“Winning six medals here in Rotterdam and managing to convert all our bronze playoffs into medals shows a really good performance from the squad. We’ll go home and reflect and take stock collectively of what we can do to be even more prepared for the competitions coming up and, of course, for Paris next year. But it’s been a really good positive experience with the athletes enjoying the multi-sport format and that Paralympic Games type feel of event. It’s given us vital experience ahead of Paris next year, especially for our newer, less experienced players in the squad.”