Boccia star Steph McGuire admits he is gearing up for a massive 2023 – and the biggest fight of his career to qualify for the Paris 2024 Paralympics.
The 38-year-old from Hamilton says the standard of boccia is at its highest since he took up the sport back in 2005 and says absolutely nothing can be taken for granted.
Having endured a nightmare season in 2022, during which he broke his leg, McGuire is looking forward to getting back on track, having narrowly failed to progress in BC4 pairs at the World Championships in Rio last month.
He said: “2023 will be a massive year, to be honest.
“It will be the final year to try and qualify for Paris, and it’s going to be tough – probably the toughest qualification challenge I’ve ever faced.
“Paris will be tough to qualify for, but if I do, it will be a massive achievement.
“To get there would be tremendous and, being so close as well, it would allow a lot of family and friends to come.
“That would be a great way to see where I am, at that stage in my career.”
Steph added: “We’ve got one season to try and help the pairs get into a qualification position, and we have a new pair that only started last year, after the retirement of my team-mate Evie Edwards.
“Fiona Muirhead from Blantyre has stepped in, and she has been tremendous. She’s been really good all season.”
McGuire has been competing in top-level boccia for nearly 20 years, but he says the standard is so high right now that anything can happen in the sport.
“The World Championships were challenging,” he said.
“It’s a random draw these days, I probably landed in the toughest of groups, and I’ve played top-level boccia now for nearly two decades.
“The group didn’t faze me, but it was clear when I got there that these guys had a better lead-up to the games than I did.
“I broke my femur, broke my knee, I was out for six months, and Covid put me out for another month, but it is what it is.
“I know the name of our game is consistency, and it was such a stop-start season – I only played two comps in the entire year before Rio, so that did leave me a little bit behind.
“But it was a great experience to be there, an to make the team again for the World Championships after the year I had was great.
“I was able to learn what gaps I need to improve on, especially in the final year before qualification ends at the end of next year.
“Boccia, especially in my classification of BC4, continues to surprise me, year on year, with the quality and the depth.
“To put it in a little bit of perspective, the three medallists from the Tokyo Paralympics didn’t even make the podium in Rio, and the winner of the World Championships was the lowest-ranked athlete who attended.
“When I started, you could look at the top five and think one of those guys would probably win it, but not any more.
“An athlete from Japan [Shunsuke Uchida] came in ranked 23rd in the world and he won the event – and deserved to.
“That shows the depth within the sport.”
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