British Boccia Team have Unexpected Win and Loss

“We underperformed this morning in the semi-final, which was disappointing."

Great Britain's BC3 team of Jacob Thomas and Jess Hunter had a surprise win on Monday (7 May) against Belgium and Greece.

Ranked ninth before the competition, the first defeated world number three pairs Belgium's Kirsten De Laender and Pieter Clilissen in the semi-finals, then world number one, Greece's Greg Polychronidis and Nikolaos Pananos in the finals.

In the finals, Thomas and Hunter secured a strong lead in the second end by scoring four points, which the Greek pairs could not gain back. The final score was 6-1.

Belgium won bronze by beating Canada's Paul Gauthier and Bruno Garneau 6-0.

In the BC1/BC2 team event, Great Britain had been the the favourites, with David Smith and Nigel Murray both winning gold in the individual competitions on Saturday (5 May).

But Great Britain, ranked third in the world, was defeated by world number one Korea 12-1 in the semi-finals. Korea went on to win gold against Portugal 7-6, and Great Britain won the bronze-medal match against China, with an impressive 11-4 score.

Great Britain's Nigel Murray was disappointed with the result.

“We underperformed this morning in the semi-final, which was disappointing,” said Murray. “But we bounced back well and we managed to beat Hong Kong quite convincingly to get the the bronze medal, so that sort of lessened the blow.”

At the London 2012 Paralympic Games, Boccia will take place at ExCeL from 2-8 September.