What is boccia? Paralympic 2024 rules for game which is similar to bowls

Boccia is one of just two sports at the Paralympic Games which doesn’t have an Olympic cousin.

The game, which is for wheelchair athletes, resembles bowls and follows similar rules to curling. It is played on an indoor court similar in size to a badminton court. One player has six red balls and the other six blue balls. The balls are made of leather and filled with plastic granules, so they do not bounce and are easy to grip.

The aim is to get your balls closer to the white target ball, the ‘jack’, than your opponent. To start an end, one player will throw the jack. They will then throw their first ball trying to get it as close as possible.

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The other competitor then attempts to throw their ball closer. After that, the player whose ball is not closest to the jack throws next. Once all balls have been played, points are awarded.

The player that is closest to the jack receives a point for every ball they have nearer than their opponent’s closest ball. There are team and individual events and the sport is not divided by gender, but by classes, BC1 to BC4, depending on the type and severity of impairment.

Team GB has a genuine gold medal hope in David Smith. The 35-year-old heads to the Games as Britain’s most successful player in the sport and looking to defend the individual BC1 title he claimed in Rio and retained in Tokyo.

However, he has warned that swimmer Adam Peaty’s failure to win gold at a third successive Olympics shows how difficult it is to triumph at three Games running. Smith said: “This time around, I’m probably not going in as the absolute favorite, as maybe I was in Tokyo.

“There are probably about five or six athletes that could quite easily challenge in the BC1, which is probably the first time ever it’s been that competitive – that’s exciting.

“I’ve medalled at every tournament for the last four years. I feel like it would be wrong for me not to expect that, I guess. But I’m not putting myself under [the pressure of], ‘I must win it’. To go three in a row, Adam Peaty showed how hard that is to do.

“I’ve got bags of energy so we’ll see what that turns up and as long as I can play well and put on a show for the crowd then I’ll be relatively satisfied. I’m in a good place and raring to go.”