Claire Taggart secures Gold at the UK Championships

The UK Boccia Championships in Antrim Forum were a great success. We were proud to host the Championships in partnership with Boccia UK and welcomed 31 players from across the UK alongside representatives from Boccia England, Disability Sport Wales and Scottish Disability Sport to Antrim.

Northern Ireland were represented by five players from the Northern Ireland Boccia Team;
Claire Taggart BC2
Jayne Milligan BC4
William Graham BC1
Robyn McBride BC3
Scott Cromie BC2

There was a fantastic atmosphere in Antrim Forum from all of the supporters with some nail-biting games.  Well done to all of the players who competed, putting heart and soul into every game.

Giving a fantastic performance for Northern Ireland, Claire Taggart retained her title as BC2 UK Champion beating England’s James Clowes 4-0 in the Gold Medal Match.  Scott Cromie narrowly missed out on a BC2 Bronze medal conceding 3-2 to England’s Reshad Saraj.

William Graham BC1, Jayne Milligan BC4 and Robyn McBride BC3 played extremely well throughout their pool games and did Northern Ireland proud but faced tough opposition and didn’t go through to the finals games.

Joining Claire Taggart BC2 as UK Champions were England’s David Smith MBE BC1, Scotland’s Scott Cowan BC3 and Scotland’s Stephen McGuire BC4.

Securing Silver were Scotlands Reegan Stevenson BC1, England’s James Clowes BC2, England’s Matt Berry BC3 and England’s Louis Saunders BC4.

Securing Bronze were England’s Daniel Wain BC1, England’s Reshad Saraj BC2, Scotland’s Jamie McCowan BC3 and Scotland’s Ross Munro BC4.

Commenting on the event and the results, Boccia UK Performance Director Helen Nicholls said, ”We have seen some outstanding Boccia played here this weekend and I’ve been really impressed with the performances and the attitude of all the players. Playing against the world ranked players has been a great experience for the pathway players and they have shown that they are pushing hard to improve. With just over a year to go to Tokyo, being tested on home soil is great for the World Class Programme athletes too.

“The Championships were played in a great spirit so a huge thank you to the volunteers and Disability Sport Northern Ireland for all their hard work in making it such a success and enjoyable weekend.”

On behalf of everyone at Disability Sport NI and all of the players, we would like to thank our sponsors for the event Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council and TBC Conversions for their much appreciated support.

** UPDATE** for all event photos please visit the Disability Sport NI Facebook Page.