Back to Boccia student success
After more than 2 years away from competing at Boccia England events due to Covid, we’ve been delighted to get back to competitions this term.
Last weekend (30 April -1st May) PE teacher Kim Smith took students Sophie and Harrison, two BC4 players to compete alongside 55 boccia athletes in Hatfield for the ‘Back to Boccia’ Open Central competition.
Their target was to gain experience, enjoy the competition, play to their best ability and maybe win one end from one of the top two players as a bonus.
So we were delighted when they came home with two medals, Harrison took Silver and Sophie took Bronze. Penny Froude, an experienced England squad member took the Gold in the BC4 category.
It was a truly amazing achievement by both Harrison and Sophie and we’re all super proud of them.
Sporting opportunities like this are only possible because of our generous donors, and we are delighted to be able to offer a variety of sporting extra curricular activities to students through our Campbell Sports Fund.
The Back to Boccia Opens are competition weekends for the 2021/2022 season, which are taking place instead of what was known as Heathcoat Cup and The BE Cup.
Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic…
While our students were competing in Hatfield, former student, patron and school team ambassador David Smith OBE was competing in Rio at the Boccia World Cup, revisiting the venue of the 2016 Paralympics, where he also won a Gold medal. In an exciting match David beat Daniel Perez 4.3 to take the gold.
David is a real inspiration to our students. He is Britain’s most successful boccia player of all time. During his career, he has amassed five Paralympic medals – three gold, one silver and two bronze. As well as being the reigning Paralympic BC1 individual champion, he is also world and European champion.
