Winners of first Virtual Boccia Competition announced

More than 600 students from 35 colleges took part in AoC Sport’s first ever virtual boccia competition.

The competition was run in partnership with Boccia England with different challenges set every week for six weeks and the average score put into a leaderboard.

The final leaderboard can be viewed here.

Congratulations to Gateway College who won the overall competition, and BMet and Grantham College who finished as runners-up. All three colleges will receive credit to spend at the Boccia England shop.

A random prize draw was also done to win one of two Boccia Skills Award Packs for those colleges who completed all six challenges. The winners of this prize draw were Sense College Loughborough and Truro and Penwith College.

Shannon Howarth, AoC Sport Disability Development Officer said: "During these challenging times we at AoC Sport recognised the importance of still being able to deliver some form of competition for disabled students to keep students active. The virtual offer has led to an increase in students participating in boccia and we have had some great feedback on how the sessions have been used as part of curriculum delivery."

Marc Device, from John Leggott College, added: "Competitive sport in the SEND world is hard to come by. The highs and lows of victory and defeat provide valuable life lessons. We were really pleased to be part of this event each week, and can't wait for next year’s tournament - bring it on!"

Dan Headley, Project Officer at Boccia England said: ‘It has been amazing to see how boccia has grown in colleges over recent years through the work we have been doing with AoC Sport. We hope to see some of the students continuing to play and taking part in competitions in the future.”

Sam Mitchell Lecturer & Pastoral Tutor at Truro & Penwith College said: "It was fantastic for the students to feel part of a wider community after having been isolating for so long due to the current pandemic."