Montreal '08 — International Boccia Event
30th April - 6th May
Kristin Macmaster and Alan McGregor qualified to be part of the Scottish Squad earlier this year. They were then chosen to be part of the Scottish team to attend an international Boccia competition in Montreal, Canada, from 30th April to 6th May.
This competition was used by many of the teams going to the Paralympics in Beijing as a warm up. For a Scottish player to qualify to play at Parolymic level he/she now has to be chosen to play for Team Great Britain. So it was a great opportunity for our Scottish squad of seven players from around Scotland to represent their country on such a high level. And they should all be very proud of their achievements.
Arriving in Montreal at midnight and having to be up at 6am the next morning to be at the venue for 8am was the start of a gruelling five days of competition. Alan and Kristin played in six games against New Zealand, Argentina, China, Canada (1 + 2) and Team G.B. Along with Joshua Rowe from Perth, who was the third member of the team, they played some amazing Boccia and certainly made some of the other countries sit up and take notice of Scotland.
After team games came individual competition, early starts and late finished taking its toll on everyone. But the level of competition was superb.
Kristin's toughest match was against a world-ranked number 10 player from Argentina and he narrowly beat her by one point -- but what a game!
Alan came up against a top British player to also be narrowly beaten by one point.
Every game played was to the highest standard of international competition and both Alan and Kristin should be extremely proud of their performances.
Two weeks later (17th May) it was off to Cardiff! (Unfortunately, Alan was unable to attend.) Kristin again put in some very good performance, meeting British number 1, Nigel Murray, and being narrowly beaten into fourth place in her group.
Well done to both Alan and Kristin for achieving this level of play and we wish them well as they continue their training schedule with an eye on their next competition: Cheshire in August.