a look into the past and present of boccia｜how much do you know about paralympic events③
2024-09-01
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text/liu zhuonan, yangcheng evening news omnimedia reporter
photo/paralympic games official website
many olympic sports have paralympic versions, but only two paralympic sports, goalball and boccia, have no olympic counterparts.
boccia is a sport designed for people with cerebral palsy, severe spasticity or severe physical disabilities. the sport has been developed in 75 countries around the world. during the competition, athletes must sit in a wheelchair to throw the ball. the score is calculated based on the distance between the thrown ball and the target ball. the one with the highest accumulated score wins.
boccia, which originated in ancient greece and has long been a recreational activity, first appeared in the paralympics in 1984, giving athletes with severe disabilities the opportunity to represent their country at the olympics.
boccia is usually played on an indoor court measuring 12.5m x 6m. each player has six balls or six serves before each round. players must sit in a wheelchair and throw the balls as close to a small white ball called "jack" as possible. individual and doubles matches have four serves, while teams of three have six serves.
athletes are divided into four levels according to their disabilities, with bc1 and bc2 for cerebral palsy (cp1 or cp2), and bc3 and bc4 for severe physical dysfunction or limb disability. bc3 athletes cannot complete actions such as grip, pick up, throw, and cast. athletes at this level can use auxiliary devices such as tracks, head sticks, and canes to serve, and are allowed to use a sports assistant. the sports assistant faces away from the court during the serve, with the purpose of executing the athlete's orders and adjusting the auxiliary equipment, but is not allowed to provide advice to the athlete or turn around to watch the game.
as a sport that tests athletes' muscle control, upper limb coordination, body flexibility and strategy, boccia is also of great help in the rehabilitation of people with disabilities.
hard court bowling is a sport that guangdong is good at. the national hard court bowling team base is located in guangdong, and guangdong has a large number of hard court bowling players. in the paris paralympic games, the chinese paralympic hard court bowling team sent a total of 5 athletes to participate in 6 events including individual, double and team events. among them, 3 players are from guangdong, namely zheng yuansen, lan zhijian and lin ximei.
zheng yuansen is 35 years old this year. this is his fourth olympic journey. he is also the athlete from guangdong who has participated in the olympic games the most times. previously, he and his old partner lin ximei won the championship in the hangzhou asian para games. in this paris paralympic games, the two will partner again to participate in the hard court bowling mixed doubles-bc4 level competition.
lin ximei is 29 years old this year. she joined the guangdong province hard court bowling team for training in august 2012 and joined the national hard court bowling team in 2013. she won one gold and one silver medal at the 4th asian para games in hangzhou.
lan zhijian is 33 years old and is from yunfu, guangdong. he joined the provincial boccia team in 2011, participated in the national championship for the first time in 2013 and won the first place in the bc1/2 team. he started to join the national boccia team in 2013. at the last tokyo paralympic games, lan zhijian won the silver medal in the bc1/2 team competition.
