The Canadian team is beginning to arrive in Guadalajara, settle into village life, and get in some last minute training.  I fly to Mexico early tomorrow morning, and am feeling very ready and excited to begin competition on November 13.  I will try and update everyone as much as I can during the Games, but you can follow official results from the Games Organizing Committee here:

http://info.parapan.guadalajara2011.org.mx/ENG/ZZ/ZZS103A_BC@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ENG.htm

I will be Tweeting and Facebooking (aren’t those great verbs?) as often as possible the next few days, so be sure to follow both of my accounts (convenient links below) for a glimpse at the Athlete Village and me and my teammates as we compete against some of the top boccia players in the world.

Like always, I love hearing from you all when I am away competing.  The pressure is on, as we try and qualify individual spots for the 2012 Paralympic Summer Games in London.  Stay tuned for an exciting Games!

photo courtesy of Don Lane

The 2011 Boccia Blast in London, Ontario came to a close on Sunday, as the best boccia players in Canada battled for the prestigious title.  I am currently ranked number 19 in the world, and this was an important tune up event before the 2011 Parapan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico next month.  Due to a disappointing loss to world number 31 Caroline Vietnicks, Saturday, 2 – 4, I needed to beat world number 8 and 2011 Boccia World Cup silver medalist, Marco Dispaltro, for a chance at Boccia Blast silver – gold was out of reach for me because of the round robin point spread.

Dispaltro played me at 8 metres, where we clashed, shot for shot until the final ball of the end.  I was able to land a solid ricochet that budged my blue ball millimetres closer than his red, to score the first point of the game.  In the second end, I played a solid short game at 3.5 metres, ending up with three more points, leading 4 – 0 going into the third of four ends.

With the jack (white target ball) back to Dispaltro, he played at 5 metres and landed a solid first ball.  Since I was leading, I decided to play defense, and set up an impressive wall of balls.  It was not impressive enough, as he was able to place three of his balls past my defense, bringing the score to 4 – 3 entering the fourth end.

I placed the jack at 3.5 metres again and had a well but not perfectly placed first ball.  Dispaltro played the millimetre game, placing balls and pushing and lobbing them up.  We went back and forth, with the jack almost out of the court.  If the jack is knocked out, it goes to the centre “X” and all the balls stay where they are placed.  With one red ball scoring for the tie, I had two blue balls left.  I placed one near the “X,” but at a disappointing distance.  With my final ball, I landed a perfect shot right on the jack – scoring.  Dispaltro had three balls remaining.  He tried a lob and missed.  He tried a second lob and got a piece of the ball cluster, but not enough – blue was still scoring.  With his final lob, he budged the group of balls enough for his red ball to score.

When we went up to see the field of play and settle the score with the referee, I saw that Dispaltro’s red ball appeared to be right on the line, meaning it was out of play, and I would win the match.  I called over Mike Clark, the head referee for an official measurement, and after around 10 minutes of gently poking and prodding the ball in the direction of the court with a piece of paper, to verify if the bottom part of it was touching the line, it was declared in.

This tied the score and brought us to an overtime end.  The jack is placed on the “X” at 5 metres, and after some back and forth, Dispaltro scored the tie-breaking point for the win – leaving me with bronze this time.  A close win for him, and solid performance from me bodes well for our chances in Guadalajara individual play, along with our teammate Vietnicks.

We leave in a few weeks, and are ready to challenge hard for those spots on the podium.

The Canadian boccia team for the 2011 Parapan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico was announced today, and I am very proud to be a part of it.  This will be a great chance for us to test ourselves against the top international players in the Americas region, as we chase gold in London 2012.

The press release from boccia’s national sport organisation is below:

Canadian Boccia Team Announced for the Parapan American Games

(Ottawa, September 9th, 2011) The Canadian Cerebral Palsy Sport Association (CCPSA) is pleased to announce the athletes who will take part in the Parapanamerican Games in Guadalaraja, Mexico. The competition will be held November 8-12, 2011.

This event will be an individual competition. “The group of athletes selected for the Parapanamerican Games have great potential and many of these athletes already have been successful at the last Boccia World Cup,” says Head Coach of the Canadian Boccia Team, Mario Delisle. “I am confident that the athletes will represent Canada well and I know they have the motivation to earn the opportunity to compete individually at the 2012 Paralympic Games. The level of play has improved greatly in America and I expect the competition level to be high at the ParapanAms”.

Here are the members of the team:

BC1
Brock Richardson (Brampton, ON)
Keven Smith-Worthylake (Ottawa, ON)

BC2
Adam Dukovich (London, ON)
Dave Richer (Ste-Julie, QC)

BC3
Martin Dubois (Val-des-Monts, BC)
Paul Gauthier (Vancouver, BC)

BC4
Marco Dispaltro (St-Jerome, QC)
Josh Vander Vies (Sarnia, ON)
Caroline Vietneks (Delta, BC)

I am home after an exhausting 12+ hour journey from Northern Ireland.  Thanks to everyone for your support while I was competing in Belfast at the 2011 Boccia World Cup.  I finished my pool play with a loss to Hyeon Seok Seo of Korea which meant I did not advance out of my pool.  The scores of my individual matches were:

VS. Yoocharoen Sataporn (THA) Loss 3-5

VS. Martin Burian (SVK) Win 6-4

VS. Hyeon Seok Seo (KOR) Loss 1-7

Finishes below the top 16 knockout rounds are calculated by point spread, putting me in 25th place out of 37 competitors.  This is a disappointing finish for me individually, but I am proud of how I played and how my game has matured.  I learned a lot this week and will train hard to keep up with the world’s best players.

My teammate, Marco Dispaltro, had an excellent individual competition, finishing with the silver medal after winning his knockout matches and advancing to the gold medal match.  He lost a very close final to Eliseu Dos Santos (BRA) and showed he is an amazing boccia player.

Earlier in the competition, my Canadian team mates Caroline Vietnicks Marco Dispaltro and I finished a fantastic 4th out of 12 countries.  We await the official International Rankings, however it appears that this is good enough to earn Canada a spot at the London 2012 Summer Paralympic Games.  The Canadian Paralympic Team will be selected sometime next year, and I will be training and competing hard for a spot on the team, and a medal in London.

Thanks for your support boccia fans!  Go Canada Go!

To follow me, and the rest of the Canadian team on our quest for the Boccia World Cup, visit the following website, where results will be posted by the host organising committee:

http://www.sportsulster.com/boccia2011fixtures.php

The website also features a live feed for during select matches, a list of all of the players from all of the countries participating, a schedule of events and more.  I will be competing in the following events on the following days:

August 21 and 22: BC4 Pairs

August 23 – 26: Individual

As always, I love receiving encouragement from all of you.  I will be in my competition bubble during these days, so I might not respond, but your comments on Twitter, Facebook and my blog will fuel me!