BC4 Pairs Take Silver at Day Two of the Boccia World Open Championships

Poznan, Poland (June 18, 2015) – The second day and final day of pairs competition at the Boccia World Open Championships in Poznan Poland brought more strong technical and strategic play from Marco Dispaltro (St. Jerome, QC), Alison Levine (Montréal, QC) and Caroline Vietnieks (Burnaby, BC). The pairs dominated their first three games before faltering to Portugal in the gold medal round.

The day began with a face-off between Canada and Greece. Riding the momentum of yesterday’s win over Slovenia, Canada took the match with a 7-0 win. Game two pitted Hungary against Canada. Trailing 1-3 after the first three ends, Canada pulled through with a strong fourth end and a 4-3 win. The semi-finals pitted Canada against long time rivals Brazil. It was a tough match but the Canadians prevailed with a 5-4 win. Of the game, BC4 coach César Nicolai says “In terms of the score, it was a balanced game. In actuality, after scoring three points on their jack in the first end, and then having the Brazilians up with a score of 4-3 – we had to pull all our mental resources to take the match.”

The gold medal match proved challenging for the Canadians who conceded to the Portuguese with a score of 1-4. Dispaltro commented on the championship match saying, “although we may not have played our best boccia today, we showed our spirit and are still very happy with the silver.”