LET THE GAMES BEGIN
Paralympics are set to light up Rio
Canada’s boccia stars are on top of their game, and potentially on top of the world, as the Paralympics begin.
“Back in the day we had more players, but the quality might not have been quite as good. Now we have all the skills. We’ve got the power, we’ve got the finesse, we’ve got pretty much everything it takes to become Paralympic champions, so the confidence right now is high.”
That’s Marco Dispaltro, the somewhat more extroverted half of Canada’s famed one-two punch in the BC4 class.
The 49-year-old from StJerome, Que., is also the finesse. His doubles partner, 26-year-old Paralympics rookie Alison Levine of Montreal, is the muscle.
“Alison is the powerhouse,” said Dispaltro. “Right now on tour, Alison is probably the second strongest player in terms of power on the court.”
The object of the sport — played by wheelchair athletes, many of whom have cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy — is to wind up with as many as all six of your coloured leather balls closer to the jack — which is white — than any of the opponent’s balls.
“In boccia, the really important thing to do is hide the jack,” Dispaltro said. “So once you put the coloured ball in front of the jack, it’s very hard to displace. But Alison can destroy that. I mean she can just open up a lot of space. She can push the white ball back a couple of metres. There’s only a couple of people in the world who can do that.
“The opponent hides the jack, Alison destroys it, then I hide the jack. So it’s like a one-two punch, you know?”
While Levine has worked on her finesse lately and always counts on her trademark power, she credits Dispaltro with thinking his way around the court.
“In chess there is the chessmaster. He’s the boccia master.
“I’ve been playing for a few years now and my coaches have always told me my strategy is excellent and I always choose the really good option.
“But sometimes when we’re in doubles, or individuals even, I’ll ask Marco what shot he’s going to go for, and I would never in a million years have even seen that shot.
“He manages to create something out of nothing so often. When you think ‘I’ve got the point, there’s no way he’s going to get the point back,’ he will not let you do it. It’s mind-blowing. It’s incredible.”
Dispaltro and Levine will be joined by teammates Eric Bussiere, Iulian Ciobanu, Bruno Garneau and Marylou Martineau in Rio. The BC3 and BC4 pairs competitions are first up.
Dispaltro and Levine open against respected rivals Brazil, then China and finally Thailand in pool play.
“The people are going to be hyped,” Dispaltro said of the proBrazilian crowd. “I love to play under adversity. It’s going to be very challenging. We don’t know what the atmosphere is going to be in the arena so in practice we put really loud samba music on, ambient noises, a lot of crowd noises.”
Dispaltro has only half a dozen years in boccia, after first playing wheelchair tennis and rugby, where he earned the nickname The Mouth of the North.
He said rival British boccia players called him something much less flattering during the London Paralympics, where he and then-partner Josh Vander Vies took home bronze.
“In the bronze medal game they were whispering under their breath and it was something like the C word. Every time I was getting ready to throw, I was called the C word. For me, I love that kind of stuff.”
He embraces the concept of oncourt trash talk.
“When I started boccia, everybody said it’s a gentleman’s sport, it’s very fair play, it’s this and that. Bulls---. It’s like every other sport I play. Yes, maybe there’s more etiquette, but there’s a--holes in rugby, there’s a--holes in basketball, there’s the same thing in boccia as well.
“There are people who are fun to compete against and there are people you just want to clean their clocks.
“For sure there’s trash talk but you’ve got to be careful. If the referee turns his back or whatever, people will take advantage of that a little bit.”