A Boccia England Team comprising of Caroline Robinson (BC1), Jason Rolph (BC2), Rafael Young (BC3) and Penny Froude (BC4) competed in the Tatra Cup, Slovakia this week. Although this was an International Friendly, there were numerous BISFed ranked and paralympic athletes competing in this highly contested competition.

In the individual competition, Penny faced tough competition in her pool against previous Tokyo Paralympic Champion, Samuel Andrejčík and numerous other world class players, but played some fantastic boccia throughout the competition. Jason made it into the quarterfinals of the competition after a fantastic achievement of topping his group. Caroline finished in a podium position at only her second international event, winning a bronze medal having seen off tough opposition in her BC1 competition. Rafael produced one of the comebacks of the competition having been 4-0 down in the semi-finals, only to stage an amazing fightback and to finish the competition as BC3 champion.

In the Teams and Pairs competition, all the athletes had the opportunity to be paired up with another International athlete. This was a fantastic opportunity for the athletes to learn and share their experiences with athletes outside of England. Penny was paired up with Gergo Gigacz from Hungary, whilst Rafael was paired up with Polish athlete Zbigniew Bednarek.  Both competed well throughout the Pairs competitions. Caroline and Jason were teamed up with Vivien Nagy from Hungary and saw themselves make it to the final of the team competition, taking home a Silver medal on a tie-break. A massive thank you to the athletes from the Hungary and Polish Boccia associations for pairing up with our athletes.

 Tatra Cup Team Manager Barry Bowden said:

“It was an invaluable experience for our athletes, who played some fantastic boccia when up against some world class athletes. We want to thank the competition organisers for welcoming us and for delivering an excellent competition”