A squad of Academy & developing athletes competed for Wales at the Cheshire International Boccia Championships over the weekend (July 25^th & 26^th) at Robin Park Centre Wigan. It saw them compete against Paralympic gold medallists as well as notable internationally ranked players. They returned delighted with a Silver and 4^th place in the BC3 competition whilst there were other notable performances by the squad.

The two day competition saw a BC1/BC2 Team made up of Steve Evans (Crumlin) Harri Jenkins (Neath) & Andrew Williams (Mold), 2 BC3 teams Jacob Thomas (Pembroke) Gareth Stafford (Wrexham) Thomas Ciaburro (Bridgend) in one team whilst James Bailey (Cardiff) and Karl Parrish (Chepstow) in the other - and a BC4 pair Tomas Martin (Cardiff) & Jamie Gordon (Pontypridd) battle it out against the best of the rest.

The BC3 Pair of Thomas, Stafford and Ciaburro battled themselves out of a tough group stages to go through to the semi-final to meet the other Welsh pair of Bailey & Parrish. In a tense game Thomas, Stafford & Ciaburro fought through to the final, whilst Bailey & Parrish had to contend the 3^rd/4^th play-off.

In the final, Thomas, Stafford & Ciaburro saw themselves up against the Great Britain pair of Ce Turk & Liam Beresford. They had already met in the group stages were GB had won 5 – 2. The final was a tighter game, and it was only decided on the last end, were it could have gone either way, but GB came out on top winning 4 – 2.

In the 3^rd/4^th play-off Bailey & Parrish fought hard against a England pair, only losing out 3 – 1 in the end to take 4^th place.

Another highlight of the weekend was the BC1/BC2 Team who were up against Paralympic Gold Medallists Great Britain. The young squad of Evans, Jenkins and Williams pushed GB all the way taking them to a tie-break at 3 – 3 after 4 ends, however the experience of GB paid off in the tie-break taking it by a single point.

All-in-all Wales was joint second with Scotland in the Home Country Competition, and the squad now looks forward to the GB Nationals planned for October.

The team was supported by the Academy programme, sponsored by Ace Feet in Motion, and supported by the Sports Council for Wales aims to develop young talented athletes into the World Class athlete they aspire to be. Already the Academy has seen success with 9 of the 15 new Welsh athletes in Team GB at the Beijing Paralympic Games in 2008 coming through this programme.