Boccia UK all set for LA 2028 cycle

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Boccia UK is leaving no stone unturned in its quest for victory at the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games.

With more athletes than ever before with a world top 10 ranking, Performance Director Greg Baker believes the British squad is in a good position to be one of the top performers in LA.

stephen mcguire winning gold at paris paralympic games 2024

Yet, it will be no easy feat. As Britain steps up its preparation so too do nations around the world. The sport’s rapid growth resulted in more athletes competing at a Paralympic Games than ever before, hitting the milestone of 125 competitors at Paris 2024. The French capital also witnessed 36 countries vying for medals, the widest representation ever.

We saw boccia athletes representing the region of Africa for the first time at a Paralympic Games and nations winning medals for the first time included Argentina, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Singapore and Ukraine.

As new nations are coming to the fore, Boccia UK is taking its preparations to the next level.

Boccia UK:

  • has set up a new senior leadership team to steer the organisation through the LA cycle. This comprises Performance Director, Head Coach, Head of Performance Pathways, Operations Manager and our Head of Performance Support from the UK Sports Institute

  • has strengthened its coaching team, appointing first-ever Head Coach, Rikki Bingham and adding a part-time Performance Coach to the team

  • is increasing coaching time on court for all athletes on the World Class Programme, both in weekly training and in competition

  • is stepping up coaching time for the Talent Transition Squad

  • is improving how coaches and UK Sports Institute practitioners work together to share ideas, knowledge and expertise to maximise athlete potential

rikki bingham joins boccia uk as head coach

Greg Baker, Performance Director, said:

“We’re in a really strong position as we are fortunate to have highly experienced Performance Coaches Claire Morrison and Glynn Tromans providing hands-on coaching. We’re adding to this by appointing Lauren Kianchehr as a third Performance Coach on a part-time basis and by increasing Michaela Rihackova’s coaching time within our Talent Transition programme. And Rikki Bingham, of course, joins us from Archery GB to lead the coaching team and we’re really excited to introduce expertise from a different sport but one that shares similarities to boccia.”

He added:

“Boccia is a sport that is growing rapidly around the world and we saw the results of that at Paris 2024 with new nations in the medal table. Great Britain performed strongly last season – we saw that at the Paralympic Games where Stephen McGuire won a gold medal but we also had two bronze medal playoff matches and three quarter-final finishes. We also enjoyed strong results across the World Cups in 2024.

“But there’s more that we can do and more that we need to do if we want to achieve our ambitions of being the number one boccia nation in the world. Coaching is key to realising that. We’ve got a strong, experienced team in place which is why we’re dialling up on that in this cycle.”