It was a big weekend for the members of the National Boccia Program of the Canadian Cerebral Palsy Sports Association. While the BC3 pair was in England to take part in the Cheshire Open, the rest of the National Team and the Espoir Team were competing in Montreal at the Defi Sportif.
Martin Dubois (Val des Monts), Bruno Garneau (Montreal) and Monica Martino (Vancouver) finished fifth in the BC3 Pair category at the Cheshire Open which is located not far from Manchester. They lost 5-4 against England 1 in the quarter finals and followed up with a 10-1 win against Ireland 1 to conclude the competition. The day before, Canada had maintained a perfect record during the round-robin.
“This competition was a valuable experience for the BC3 athletes, especially Martin and Bruno who had limited international experience”, said Mario Delisle, Head Coach of the National Program. “We had extremely tough competition and the level of play gave us a good indication of what to expect at the World Championships. Despite their fatigue on Saturday afternoon, they played very well against Belgium and were the only team to beat them during the week-end”.
The rest of the team were in Montreal continuing their preparation for the World Championships to be held in a few weeks in Portugal. More then 40 athletes from everywhere in Canada as well as athletes from Belgium took part in the Defi Sportif. The members of the National Program won 13 of the 19 medals available in the different Paralympic categories. Click here to see all the results.
