Four Scots formed part of the UK Boccia team, winning four out of the five medals to ensure they topped the medal table at the 2017 BISFed European Championships, held in Povoa de Varzim, Portugal.
Team & Pairs
In the team and pairs events, the BC4 Pair of Stephen McGuire, Evie Edwards and Louis Saunders were closest to a Gold medal. Their final against Portugal, who they had earlier beaten at the pool stage, went down to a tie break after finishing 3-3.
An all Scottish BC3 Pair of Patrick Wilson, Jamie McCowan and Scott McCowan also took Silver. They recovered from a 1-4 loss to France in their Pool to record three victories, 4-3 over Portugal, 6-3 over Spain and 7-0 over Denmark. They defeated Greece 5-2 in the Semi-Final before losing the final 0-11 to Russia, who claimed their first European title.
Individual
There was also Scottish success in the individual competition with Jamie McCowan (and ramp assistant, Linda McCowan) took the BC3 title, whilst Stephen McGuire grabbed top spot in BC4 event in what was an incredible last day of the competition.
McCowan ground out a 3-2 semi-final against Greg Polychronidis of Greece, before facing Damian Iskrzycki from Poland in the final. After losing the first end 0-6, he fought back to win 8-7 in a remarkable turnaround to win his first European title.
McGuire battled through a very challenging semi-final to win 5-3 over Micaela Balcova from Slovakia prior to facing Russia’s Sergey Safin. In the end McGuire’s experience shown through as he ran out 6-1 to add the European Individual title to the World crown he claimed in 2016.
An impressive UK Boccia finished the competition with five medals from seven events.
FULL RESULTS
GOLD Individual BC1 – David Smith MBE
GOLD Individual BC3 – Jamie McCowan (assistant Linda McCowan)
GOLD Individual BC4 – Stephen McGuire
SILVER Pairs BC3 – Jamie McCowan (assistant Linda McCowan), Scott McCowan (assistant Gary McCowan, Patrick Wilson (assistant Will Wilson)
SILVER Pairs BC4 – Stephen McGuire, Evie Edwards, Louis Saunders