 Jamieson Leeson in 2019 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationality |  Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 18 March 2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Boccia | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Disability class | BC3 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Jamieson Leeson (born 18 March 2003) is an Australian boccia player. She represented Australia at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. [1] She won a gold and silver medal at the 2022 World Championships.
She was born on 18 March 2003 with spinal muscular atrophy. [2] She uses a wheelchair and her mother, Amanda, is her primary carer. The rugby league's Men of League Foundation provided her family with a customised van with specialist wheelchair lift to help her daily transport. [3] She grew up in Dunedoo, New South Wales and attended Dunedoo Central School. [4] [5] In 2024, she is studying a Bachelor of Economics full-time at the University of New South Wales. [6]
She began playing in 2018 where she was scouted in a school's knock out competition in Orange, New South Wales and trains in Sydney under Australia's Boccia Head Coach Ken Halliday. [2] In March 2019, Jamieson competed in her first ever boccia competition, winning gold in pairs. [4] She has won silver medals in the singles and pairs at the 2019 Boccia Australia National Titles. [4]
In May 2019, she won a bronze medal in the pairs at the Hong Kong World Open. [4] In July, she competed in both the pairs and individual events at the Seoul Asia-Oceania Regional Championships, winning her first ever international individual game against a Paralympic gold medalist. [4] At just 16, Jamieson has been the youngest person ever to represent Australia in boccia. [7] In 2021, she received a Tier 3 Scholarship within the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship & Mentoring Program. [4]
At the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, she teamed with Daniel Michel and Spencer Cotie in the Mixed Pairs BC3, where they won 2 and lost 2 matches but failed to qualify for the quarter-finals.
Leeson won the silver medal in the Women's BC3 and the gold medal in the Mixed Pairs BC3 at the 2022 World Championships in Rio de Janeiro. She lost 2–6 to Anna Costa in the final of the Women's BC3. [8]
She competed at the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris with her ramp assistant Jasmine Haydon. [9] She won silver in the Women's Individual Bc3, Australia's best ever performance in boccia. [10] [11] Leeson and Daniel Michel lost in the Mixed pairs BC3 quarter-finals.
In 2023, Leeson with Daniel Michel was awarded the Sport NSW Team of the Year with a Disability [12] and Australian Institute of Sport Performance Awards Team of the Year. [13]
Boccia is a precision ball sport, similar to bocce, and related to bowls and pétanque. The name "boccia" is derived from the Latin word for "boss" – bottia. The sport is contested at local, national and international levels, by athletes with severe physical disabilities. It was originally designed to be played by people with cerebral palsy but now includes athletes with other severe disabilities affecting motor skills. In 1984, it became a Paralympic sport and as of 2020, 75 boccia national organizations have joined one or more of the international organizations. Boccia is governed by the Boccia International Sports Federation (BISFed) and is one of two Paralympic sports that have no counterpart in the Olympic program, although it is a Paralympic variant of bocce (boules).
Greece, the birthplace of the Ancient Olympic Games that hosted the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics, did not compete in the Summer Paralympics until 1976 and in the Winter Paralympics until 2002, but since then the Greeks have taken part in every edition of both events. Although the Greek delegation traditionally enters first during the parade of nations at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, this tradition does not apply to the Paralympics, where Greece enters within alphabetical order. The National Paralympic Committee for Greece is the Hellenic Paralympic Committee.
Angela Ballard is an Australian Paralympic athlete who competes in T53 wheelchair sprint events. She became a paraplegic at age 7 due to a car accident.
Lynette Coleman was an Australian Paralympic boccia player, athlete and swimmer with cerebral palsy.
Liesl Dorothy Tesch AM is an Australian wheelchair basketball player, sailor, and politician. She is a Labor Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing Gosford since the 2017 Gosford state by-election.
Grigorios Polychronidis is a Greek boccia player with a Paralympic boccia classification of BC3. His specific disability is Spinal Muscular Atrophy.
Amanda Reid is an Australian Paralympic swimmer, cyclist and snowboarder. She represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in swimming. At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, she won a silver medal in the Women's 500 m Time Trial C1–3 and at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics a gold medal in the 500 m Time Trial C1–3. At the 2024 Paris Paralympics, she won a gold medal in the 500 m Time Trial C1–3.
Daniel "Dan' Michel is an Australian boccia player. He represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. He won the bronze medal in the Mixed B3 at the Tokyo Paralympics. He won two gold medals at the 2022 World Championships.
Boccia was the first cerebral palsy sport to be added to the Paralympic program in the 1984 Summer Paralympics.
Australia participated at the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan, from 24 August to 5 September 2021. It sent its largest away team - 179 athletes to a Summer Paralympics. Australia finished eighth on the gold medal table and sixth on the total medals table.
Lauren Parker is an Australian para-triathlete and para-cyclist. She won a silver medal (triathlon) at the 2020 Summer Paralympics and two gold and silver (cycling) medals at the 2024 Summer Paralympics.
Spencer Cotie is an Australian boccia player. He represented Australia at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
Maria-Eleni Kordali is a Greek boccia player with a Paralympic boccia classification of BC3. Her specific disability is cerebral palsy. She won the gold medal during the 2012 Summer Paralympics in BC3 mixed pairs along with Nikolaos Pananos and Grigorios Polychronidis.
The mixed pairs BC3 boccia event at the 2020 Summer Paralympics will be contested between 2 and 4 September 2021 at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre. Since this event is a mixed event, both genders, male and female, compete in the event.
Australia competed at the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris, France, from 28 August to 8 September 2024.
Evani Soares da Silva Calado is a Brazilian Paralympic boccia player. She won a gold medal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, in bocce BC3 mixed doubles, with Antônio Leme and Evelyn de Oliveira.
Kirsten De Laender is a Belgian Paralympian. Her first Paralympics was London 2012, where she won a bronze medal in boccia for mixed pairs BC3. De Laender also competed in the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.
John Cronin is an Irish boccia player. He won a gold medal alongside Margaret Grant at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in the mixed pairs BC3 boccia event.
Alison Levine is a Canadian boccia competitor.
Stefanía Ferrando is an Argentine boccia player. She is a two-time medalist at the Parapan American Games and a bronze medalist at the Summer Paralympics.
