Michel and Leeson send global warning

Australian boccia stars Dan Michel and Jamieson Leeson, and their respective ramp assistants Ash Maddern and Jasmin Haydon, have sounded a warning to their global opponents ahead of next year’s World Championships, with a resounding victory in their pairs competition at the Seoul 2025 World Boccia Cup.

The Australians scored a comprehensive 8-0 win over Poland in the final, after edging out Greece 4-3 in the semi-final, to score their first major win in over two years.

“There’s always a bit of nerves going into a gold medal match,” said Leeson, who won the silver medal in the individual BC3 classification at the Paris Paralympics last year.

“But we played Poland earlier on in the competition and we had a good win against them. We knew what we were in for and what to expect from them, so we were about as prepared as we could have been and it went really well.”

Michel, a two-time Paralympic medallist, at Paris 2024 and Tokyo 2020, said: “It was a really good competition, both individuals and pairs. Jam and I both played really well and it was really nice to finish it off with a gold medal, finally our first gold medal in a couple of years. It was awesome.

“It’s definitely very rewarding to get back to the top of the podium. It was a really great match for us, so it’s a nice way to do it.”

Michel and Maddern won silver in the BC3 male competition, after a tight tussle with Keisuke Kawamoto of Japan, while Leeson and Haydon won bronze in the BC3 female event, completing an outstanding tournament for the Australians.

“We’ve got our World Championships next year back in Korea again,” Michel said.

“If this is anything to go by, we’re looking pretty good for that. So, we’ll go from there, hopefully qualify for LA the year after that and see what we can do.”

By: Sarah Skidmore and David Sygall, Paralympics Australia