Champion Paralympic boccia player Jamieson Leeson has made Australia proud
Freshly back from her most successful performance to date, Jamieson Leeson is sporting a silver medal. Not only that, but she’s the first Australian Paralympic female boccia player to ever to win a medal.
“It was incredible,” Jamieson says. “Being my first Paralympic medal, it was a very special feeling.”
Jamieson, also known as Jam, often spends time on the Beaches as she is a valued member of the Manly Adolescent and Young Adult Hospice (AYAH) community, going there occasionally for respite.
She is coached by Ken Halliday, a Beaches local who picked up on Jamieson’s potential when she first tried boccia as a Year 10 student in Dunedoo, in the Central West. “I went to the day reluctantly, not thinking there was anything really in it for me,” she says. “But I really liked it.” She met Ken who invited her to Sydney to learn more about the game, and it ‘went from there.’
Diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy when she was 18 months old, Jamieson had struggled to find an accessible sport to play as a young person, until boccia came along. Her mum, Amanda, would drive Jamieson to Sydney every fortnight so she could train.
Within three years of starting boccia, she was representing Australia at the Tokyo Paralympic Games 2020. “I played in pairs with my teammate, Dan (Michel), and back then, Spencer Cotie as well. So even though it’s pairs, you kind of get substituted on the court,” Jamieson, 21, says. “So we did that in Tokyo and we got fifth.”
She explains that boccia is ‘like an indoor version of lawn bowls,’ played on a smooth surface like a basketball court. Each player must try and bowl their six balls (either all blue or all red) to land closest to the ‘jack,’ a white ball. “But the balls are a lot different to lawn bowls,” she says. “They’re quite squishy and soft.”
“I’m a BC3 athlete, which means that I can’t throw the balls far enough on the court. So I use a ramp, which rolls the balls down. And because it’s quite a complex piece of equipment, I have a ramp operator who’s an extra person that helps me play the game. And they aren’t allowed to watch the game. They have to face backwards and they’re not allowed to talk – they have to do only things that I say,” Jamieson explains.
Leading up to Paris, Jamieson was training four days a week, between four to six hours, fitting it in around her university studies in economics. “This time in Paris I qualified individually, as well as in pairs. I got second in the individual and then I believe we got sixth in the pairs.”
Jamieson’s win made her the first Australian female boccia player to win a medal. Her teammate Dan also won a silver medal in his individual final, their performances ranking as the best-ever Australian boccia results.
“Competing at the Paralympics was just an amazing experience in itself. And to be able to do that both individually and in the pairs this time was the dream,” she says.
“I think also just being part of the Australian Paralympic team is an achievement in itself,” she says. “It’s great to come together as a team and celebrate as a country.”
