The Canadian Boccia National Team started the individual competition today in Belfast, Ireland. The Canadian athletes played a total of 12 games and won five of them.
In the BC3 category, after one year away from international competition, both Alison Kabush (Surrey, BC) and Paul Gauthier (Vancouver, BC) returned on a good note. Kabush played first defeating Alberto Daniel Stalanich of Argentina and Gauthier followed up with a 7-5 victory over Maria Lourencio of Brazil. “Four years ago, I won gold at the last world Cup and my goal is to repeat here” he said. “This game is a good warm up for my game tomorrow against the number one ranked player in the world, Ho Won Jeong of Korea.”
Bruno Garneau (Montreal, QC) lost 6-3 against Kirsten de Laender of Belgium.
Adam Dukovich and Tammy Mcleod both from London, ON met each other to start the competition in the BC2 category and it was a great match. Dukovich won the contest in an extra end. Dukovich followed up with another victory, 7-2 against Jakub Fronek of Czech Republic. Mcleod was not so lucky, giving up 5 points in the second end in a 6-2 loss against Fiona Lyons of Australia. Francois Bourbonniere lost his only match of the day, 7-0 against Martiel Santos of Brazil .
The BC4 athletes competed near the end of the day. In his first individual game on the international scene Marco Dispaltro (St-Jerome, QC) faced sixth ranked player, Jose Maria Dueso of Spain. After a game that was extremely close, Dispaltro fell short, 4-0. “Dueso played really well and I wasn't so good at hiding my jack ball” Dispaltro noted. “I lost the measurement battle in the first 3 ends. His ball was a whisker from the jack and I was 1 1/8 of a whisker away”. Josh Vander Vies (Sarnia, ON) tried his best to come back from a 5-0 deficit but ultimately ran out of ends losing 5-3. Caroline Vietnieks (Surrey, BC) lost 9-1 against Adriano Silva of Brazil.
In the BC1 category, Brock Richardson (Brampton, ON) won 3-1 against Cornelius Oatis of USA. “I had a great warm up, I was ready for action but I lost some of my focus”, he admitted. “I could have scored more than four points but just couldn't get in rhythm. I made enough shots to squeak by the American”. Rookie National Team member Keven Smyth-Worthylake (Ottawa, ON) lost 8-0 to Tadtong Pattaya of Thailand, ranked second in the world.
The individual competition will continue tomorrow. Follow the Canadian athletes at www.ccpsa.ca, on the CCPSA facebook page or at http://www.sportsulster.com/boccia2011.php .
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For more information
Dominique Tremblay
CCPSA
(613) 748-1430
(514) 972-6333
dominique@ccpsa.ca
