Experienced Boccia BC3 champ wins in Prague for first time!!
- peterlangton94
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Georgina Moore may of have had apirations to be a full time teacher, but now she is in the sports hall - playing Boccia, a Paralympic sport that has no Olympic equivalent, and Georgie has recently had success on the international stage.
Previously ranked 8th (in the 2024/25 season) , she embarked on a long journey this year by getting to go to Prague for her first taste of being on the international stage.
When asked how she got into the event, she explained it was her teammate's initiative that made it happen in the first place.
It was Raf (Rafael Young)... because we had just competed as a pair in Northern Ireland, and we won Gold - it was the first time we ever played together and we won. So, he was told by Glynn (Tromans, Boccia UK coach) to maybe try and do the Prague competition, and he said to me, George, do you want to come because it'll be really good to do the pairs together? and I thought oh, do you know what, that's a great opportunity!
What blew our minds when we spoke to Georgie was when she revealed that her and Raf do not train together regularly as they live too far away from each other to realistically meet and train! But she did confirm that it was a short turnaround from being asked to actually going out to Prague for it, there was not enough time to do any training anyway and also that they did very well in Northern Ireland without any training beforehand as well. However, they did get a chance to train before the competition started.
As Georgie mentioned there was a short tunaround - a month or so - and initially she was going to drive, but decided not to due to the distance involved, driving for at least days there and two on the way back, so took the bullet and flew for the sake of a few hours on a plane, and see Prague before and after the competition dates.
She explained the competition format as 5 pairs in the group with a round robin. Luckily, Georgie and Raf together won all the round robin games apart from when they were against the Czech pair, who has far more international experiences, meaning they got a Silver medal in the pairs.
Individually though, was 3 pools and as traditionally, one England player couldn't face their own national colleuge, however in this case they had to fit two in one pool. Georgie faced two Czech players and a German in her pool and she recalled the experience.
I started off [with the first] Czech player, and lost by one point... I thought, it's a new experience, I've never come abroad [and] I'll take it for what it is. and try and enjoy it. I'm not going to get very far, but I've never played against these players before. There's no expectations. Just go for it.
Georgie then explained that the German athlete had to pull out, so she got a automatic win, before facing the other Czech player and won! That got her into the quarter finals. where she faced a fellow BC3 England member Cameron Coxall, where she said;
He [Cameron] has always beaten me. I've never beaten him before, so I was absolutely godsmacked when I beat him to get through to the quarterfinals! And at this point, I was the last England player standing out of all the classifications. So, it was nice because everybody was rallying around me and supporting me and that was really nice. But there was a huge amount of pressure on me, but I just thought 'I've done so well to get to the semi final, it really didn't matter.
She went on to add that the semi final was against the top female Czech player [ranked in the 20's across the world] and managed to get the win!
The final was against another top Czech male [ranked in the 30's in the world] and explained that he did play really well across the tournament and Georgie thought that she surely would not be winning this match, but she did... on a tiebreaker!!!!
Not only that, but Georgie managed all this in a massive heatwave with no air-con as well. She mentioned later on that she overdid the strength and conditioning programme that she had a trapped nerve in her back at the start of the year, and was in a lot of pain. To still be in pain now and still. grind out wins, well, that is remarkable.
She later explained that her main goal out of going out to complete was to do the pairs with Raf as he kindly invited her to join him and that she believed they had a good chance of doing well too as well as the experience of playing against international players. Georgie also said that everyone was pleased she came and did the event, and got experience and if they didn't know her beforehand, well, they certainly do now!!
The reception and response to her win was massive when she got back home saying;
That's been like the best thing when I got back... the amount of people that have congratulated me... like, I can't even leave my house now without someone stopping me and saying well done! [Even us, the media,] the local press, have been so supportive... been on several local newspapers... my secondary school did a thing on their Facebook page... and now I've been invited to a lot of schools to teach Boccia... The amount of exposure that I feel I've given Boccia, like I don't want the fame, but for the Boccia community, it's so important.
When we circled back to classification, she was expecting to be a BC3 at some point, and has been for the last 5 years. She was advised since that she should have always been a ramper, but she was so determined to throw ever since she started playing in 2017, that she wanted to keep her movement and strength, but at the end was giving her more pain, and that she could not throw as good as she did do previously, so had to switch to being a BC3 in the end.
After that international event, she didn't stop. Georgie gained more medals to her collection, winning two Golds in the qualifying rounds at Crawley and Warwick, getting her through into the Finals in September, which she will not be attending, due to a pre-booked holiday clashing with the last event of the Boccia England calendar!
However, with her performances and successes thus far, she hopes to appear in the UK Championships near the end of this year hosted by Wales. She is also doing the Scottish Open in October hosted in Edinburgh.
If you wish to help Georgina get to vital events and support her journey, you can do so here - https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgiesbocciajourney. You can also follow her Facebook page 'Georgie's Boccia Journey' where she updates everyone on what she's doing and how well she's progressing through the Boccia pathways! Find the page here - https://www.facebook.com/georgiesboccia?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=HvwlIG8rxN2NLdYv&share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2F1D1NtQ3T8r%2F%3Fmibextid%3DwwXIfr#.
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