VANCOUVER – Canada advanced to the quarterfinals in two of the three categories in the team competition following the completion of round robin play on Friday at the boccia World Cup
Boccia is a sport similar to lawn bowls and played by athletes with cerebral palsy. This year’s World Cup is also a qualifying tournament for the 2008 Paralympic Games.
In the combined BC 1 and BC 2 category, Canada completed a perfect 3-0 round robin with a 7-1 victory over New Zealand. The Canadian team members are Tammy McLeod of London, Ont., Adam Dukovich of Mississauga, Ont., Francine Desrochers of Montreal, Hanif Mawji of Burnaby, B.C., and Brock Richardson of Brampton, Ont.
‘’They played with incredible confidence and calmness,’’ said Canadian national team coach Mario Delisle. ‘’They followed the game plans and didn’t worry about the things they couldn’t control. Tammy in particular provided some great leadership.’’
In the BC 3 category, Canada ended the round robin at 2-1 with a 10-2 victory over Ireland to advance. Playing for Canada was Paul Gauthier of Vancouver, the individual champion earlier this week, Alison Kabush of Surrey, B.C., and Monica Martino of Vancouver.
In the BC 4 category, Jonathan Poulin of Laval, Que., and Joashua Vander Vies of Sarnia, Ont., played twice losing 8-0 Portugal before rallying for a 7-0 victory over Argentina to also finish at 2-1. However it wasn’t to get through to the final eight.
‘’We had a great last game against Argentina,’’ said Vander Vies, who teamed up with Poulin three years ago. ‘’Everything came together and we finally executed our shots after a little trouble earlier in the day with that.’’
Poulin said it wasn’t easy to rebound after the loss to Portugal in a such short time frame.
‘’All you can do is take it a game at a time and remember that all the games are important,’’ said Poulin. ‘’But we knew we had to play a big one against Argentina and we did that.’’
The quarterfinals, semis and finals are all on Saturday at B.C. Place.
