A hard day for Canadians at the Boccia World Open in Seoul

Seoul, South Korea (July 19, 2015) – World Number One Marco Dispaltro, member of CIBC Team Next Alison Levine and Iulian Ciobanu, at his first international competition, had a difficult beginning at the Boccia World Open in Seoul, Korea taking two losses against host country Korea and China.

In their first match of the day, the Canadian BC4 pair faltered against Korea for a score of 5-2. Of the match, coach Cesar Nicolai says, “it was a difficult game, and we struggled to take control of the match throughout. We’ll take this as a learning experience and we look forward to giving our all in our three matches tomorrow.”

Against China, Canada was a strong opponent, employing consistency, accuracy and strong decision making. Unfortunately, an incredible shot from the Chinese Zheng took the win in overtime. The final score was 3 and 3. Alison Levine said, “although we finished our day with two losses, our second game was great. We lost in overtime after the Chinese player made the most impressive shot I have ever seen. Overall our shot percentages of our second game was very high, and it was a very close game. A podium finish is still attainable if we play strong tomorrow.”