The Rainbow Cup started on 11^th May 2020 to help players engage virtually with boccia during to the Coronavirus pandemic. It consisted of weekly challenges that anyone could take part in, and participants could submit their scores to be included in our weekly leader boards.

There was no cost to enter and games were designed to be played with any type of equipment – we enjoyed seeing a range of household items being used, from stress balls to dog toys!

An average of 61 people submitted scores for each of the six editions and the Rainbow Cup pages on our website, where we host the details for each game, have been visited almost 6,000 times!

            

From the second edition onwards we created an additional “Red” category of games to help our more competitive boccia players develop their skills. This involved more advanced boccia drills and required boccia equipment to play.

We’re delighted that so many people have enjoyed The Rainbow Cup and have found it really helpful during lockdowns. Here are just a few quotes from people who have taken part:

“During the lockdown, the Rainbow Cup was an amazing way to stay connected and to share my progress with friends and family which has given them a small insight into what boccia is and how important it is to me. It sparked a spirit that I thought had been lost during isolation and made me more motivated and competitive with every challenge. It allowed me to be creative and use the limited space and resources around me that I never knew could be helpful for training.”

“Thank you so much Boccia England for organising the Rainbow and Red Cups. Setting an afternoon aside for Cup Play adds focus to a week free of normal activities.”

“The Rainbow Cup is brilliant - it's really helping A LOT against the general distress of my entire life being overturned by the Covid-19 crisis.”

Our competition announcer, Richard Mann, has done an amazing job of keeping everyone up to date with the latest Rainbow Cup developments and results. Every week, helped by his daughter, Natalie, Richard has filmed a video update from his back garden.

In January, we ran a special Rainbow Cup Corporate Challenge which engaged six organisations in four weeks of healthy competition. Many of the participants had never played boccia before, but said the challenge provided a great opportunity for some team-building fun whilst they were all working from home. The Activity Alliance Boccia Balboas finally emerged victorious!

           

A big thank you to everyone who took part!

If you’d like to play any of the challenges again, or use them in your club or school boccia sessions you can find all the details on the Rainbow Cup pages on our website, or view the library of instructional videos on our YouTube channel.