At the Championships, both Portugal and Great Britain led the standings with three gold medals each.
After winning two golds in the BC3 classification at the 2013 Boccia European Championships, Portugal’s Jose Macedo was voted by the public as the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) Athlete of the Month for June.
Macedo, also a London 2012 bronze medallist, received 59 per cent of the public’s vote to win the monthly accolade. The other nominees included: Brazilian sprinter Alan Fonteles Oliveira, Dutch sprinter Marlou van Rhijn, Italian handcyclist Alex Zanardi and German wheelchair tennis player Sabine Ellerbrock.
Macedo won both the individual and team BC3 titles in his own country, as the Championships were held in Guimaraes, Portugal.
The individual BC3 gold-medal match served up a clash between two 2012 Paralympic medal winners, as crowd favourite Macedo was able to edge out Greece’s Greg Polychronidis by the narrowest of margins, with the match having to be decided by a golden point.
Macedo and Polychronidis met again in the BC3 pairs final, and Macedo was again victorious, as his team, which also included Armando Costa and Luis Silva, won convincingly by a score of 7-2.
At the Championships, both Portugal and Great Britain led the standings with three gold medals each.
IPC Athlete of the Month nominations are compiled from submissions by National Paralympic Committees and International Federations.
