By Graham Thomas
The 2026 World Boccia Championships in Seoul are providing a remarkable link with the sport’s past, with four athletes competing in the Korean capital having also taken part in the tournament 24 years ago.
Maciel Santos of Brazil, Hong Kong’s Hoi Ying Kwok and John Loung (pictured above; Pic: Raquel Gouveia), and Belgium’s Francis Rombouts were all competitors at the 2002 World Championships.
Their continued presence at the highest level more than two decades later underlines the extraordinary longevity of some of boccia’s leading athletes.
Loung has even experienced a change of classification during his career. He competed in the BC2 category at the 2002 championships but is now competing as a BC1 athlete in Seoul, demonstrating how careers can evolve alongside changes in classification and the sport itself.
The 2026 championships also feature a further 19 athletes who competed at the 2006 World Championships, meaning they have returned to the global stage 20 years after competing at that tournament.
Among them are Great Britain’s David Smith and Stephen McGuire, Brazil’s José Carlos Oliveira and Eliseu dos Santos, and Japan’s Takayuki Hirose.
Several of those returning athletes have enjoyed considerable success since 2006. Kwok won gold, while Greece’s Grigorios Polychronidis claimed silver and Hong Kong’s Yuk Wing Leung took bronze at the 2006 championships.
The group also includes Portugal’s Cristina Gonçalves, China’s Zhiqiang Yan, South Korea’s Howon Jeong and Sweden’s Christoffer Hagdahl.
For the four athletes whose careers stretch all the way back to 2002, however, Seoul represents an especially impressive milestone.
Their participation 24 years apart provides a remarkable reminder of the experience and longevity that exists within elite boccia – and gives the 2026 World Championships a direct connection with two decades of the sport’s history.
