Boccia UK – who oversee athletes competing for Great Britain – have tapped into knowledge from other sports as they bid for success at the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games.
Britain only had one boccia medal winner at the Paris 2024 Paralympics – BC4 gold medalist Stephen McGuire – but the depth in their squad is reflected by the fact they have nine athletes ranked in the world’s top 10 across the individual classifications, plus top 10 world rankings for BC4 Pairs and Teams.
Boccia UK recently appointed their first head coach, Rikki Bingham, who had previously worked in archery.
She moved from Archery GB where she held the senior role of Olympic performance manager during the Paris 2024 cycle. She has also coached Paralympic archers since 2014, becoming the programme lead coach.
With more athletes than ever before with a world top 10 ranking, Boccia UK performance director Greg Baker believes the British squad is in a good position to be one of the top performers in LA.
Yet, it will be no easy feat. The sport’s rapid growth resulted in more athletes competing at a Paralympic Games than ever before, hitting the milestone of 125 competitors at Paris 2024.
The French capital also witnessed 36 countries vying for medals, the widest representation ever.
We saw boccia athletes representing the region of Africa for the first time at a Paralympic Games and nations winning medals for the first time included Argentina, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Singapore and Ukraine.
Baker said: “Rikki Bingham has joined us from Archery GB to lead the coaching team and we’re really excited to introduce expertise from a different sport but one that shares similarities to boccia.”
As new nations are coming to the fore, Boccia UK is taking its preparations to the next level.
They have set up a new senior leadership team to steer the organisation through the LA cycle, strengthened their coaching team, with the appointment of Bingham, and added a part-time performance coach to their team.
They have also increased coaching time on court for all athletes on the world class programme, stepped up coaching time for the talent transition squad, and improved how coaches and UK Sports Institute practitioners work together to share ideas, knowledge and expertise to maximise athlete potential.
Baker added: “Boccia is a sport that is growing rapidly around the world and we saw the results of that at Paris 2024 with new nations in the medal table.
“Great Britain performed strongly last season – we saw that at the Paralympic Games where Stephen McGuire won a gold medal but we also had two bronze medal play-off matches and three quarter-final finishes.
“We also enjoyed strong results across the World Cups in 2024.
“But there’s more that we can do and more that we need to do if we want to achieve our ambitions of being the number one boccia nation in the world.
“Coaching is key to realising that. We’ve got a strong, experienced team in place which is why we’re dialling up on that in this cycle.”
