Will Arnott: From School Boccia Player To Paralympic Contender

Last Updated on 03/09/2024 by Crip Life

Will Arnott, a distinguished World and European boccia medalist, is set to make his Paralympic debut at the Paris 2024 Games as one of three newcomers. He joins a seven-member boccia squad representing ParalympicsGB, showcasing his remarkable journey from local competitions to the international stage.

As part of our ParalympicsGB debutants interview series, our editor, Emma Purcell, speaks to Will Arnott about living with muscular dystrophy, becoming a boccia player, his sporting success so far and what he is most looking forward to at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Read: Kayleigh Haggo: Switching The Race Track For Boccia Balls To Compete At Her First Paralympic Games In Paris

Will Arnott is making his Paralympic debut in Paris, five years after making his international debut at an Open event in Zagreb, where he won a silver medal.

He was introduced to Boccia in the same way as gold medallist David Smith through the Treloar’s School.

Will’s first major appearance in a British shirt was at the 2022 World Championships in Rio, where he was eliminated at the quarter-final stage in the BC3 Pairs. And in 2023, Will – together with ramp assistant Connor Wellfare – won silver in the individual event at the European Para Championships.

The BC3 athlete from Reading helped secure a qualifying spot in Paris with competition partner Sally Kidson after they triumphed together winning gold in the BC3 Pairs category at the qualifying tournament in Coimbra, Portugal.

Will has also recently won gold in the World Boccia Challenger in Poznan, Poland and a bronze in the World Cup in Montréal, Canada.

In Paris, he will be joining three-time Paralympic champion David Smith and reigning world champion Claire Taggart, along with returning Paralympic athletes Stephen McGuire and Patrick Wilson and fellow debutants Kayleigh Haggo and Sally Kidson.

Read on to find out more about Will Arnott in his own words and scroll down to see his Paris 2024 results. 

Will Arnott on living with muscular dystrophy

When were you first diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and how did it impact your childhood?

I was diagnosed when I was five years old. With duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a lot of children and their families don’t find out until later on so I think for me it didn’t really affect my childhood too much. I think my parents did a very good job of putting me in a good position with it. So they very quickly moved out of the house that had stairs because Duchenne would get worse, so knowing that, we moved to a bungalow quite early.

Then I was lucky enough to be able to go to Treloar’s, a school for people with disabilities and I was lucky enough to get all my care needs sorted out there. I would stay there during the week and that has definitely helped me become more independent once I left school and went to university and now living at home doing boccia full-time.

How does living with DMD affect you on a daily basis?

For me, I need carers to help with everything in my day-to-day life. A normal day they’ll get me up about 8am and that takes a bit of time. Then I train five times a week so a lot of the time it’s my carers at home who will help get me up in the morning and then I go with my assistant to training.

I’m lucky that I have a good team of carers who help with all of those challenges and make my life as easy as possible. Without them, it would be very difficult.

What was it like to attend Treloar school and college and did you find it more beneficial than a mainstream school?

Treloar’s was definitely the right place for me. I think the only difficulty is when you get up to year 10 and 11 and I would be a higher-ability student so I would be doing stuff like normal school education like GCSEs and A-levels.

Once I moved into sixth form, I went into Alton College so I had the best of both worlds with my care needs looked after by Treloar staff but then also being able to access mainstream education and do those A-levels and push on towards university

So that was probably one of the best times for while being at school for me because being in that mainstream environment definitely suited me more academically but having the backup of Treloar’s definitely helped.

Mainstream would have meant an hour commute every day and that would have been very challenging with my disability. I think that would have led to me being much more tired and not as able to do extra activities like boccia because Treloar’s is what introduced me to it in the first place.

Will Arnott on becoming a boccia player

You were introduced to boccia through school, playing as a BC4 then switched to a BC3. Can you tell us why you switched classifications?

There are four classifications in boccia. I used to be a BC4, which is a non-cerebral palsy thrower. So I used to throw the ball but because of duchenne, it was very unlikely that I would be able to challenge anyone in that classification.

I then had surgery when I was 15, which basically meant I wouldn’t be able to throw anymore. So after a year of waiting to be fully able to use a ramp as a BC3, I switched from BC4 to BC3.

BC3 athletes use an assisted device, which is a ramp in my case. I have an assistant who will not be allowed to look on to court but will have to do everything I say. So I will give basic instructions on where to point the ramp. Obviously, it is more complicated than just left and right. There is a lot more information that has to be handed back and forth.

When I switched to BC3, it meant I was then suddenly a lot more able to play the shots that I wanted to play. I always felt like I was told that my tactical knowledge was good but I physically couldn’t play the shots and once I changed from throwing the ball to using a ramp, suddenly I was just as able as everyone I was playing against rather than before when I was very limited by my physical ability.

Boccia is, I would say, the most inclusive sport in the world. There are people with much more severe disabilities than me who are still able to perform and play at the very top level and that’s across all the classifications.

So it’s pretty… I don’t want to use the word inspiring because I think it gets overused. But even for me, seeing the limitations that others have and can manage because I don’t think things are ideal in our country for people with disabilities but we are very lucky compared to certain countries that I’ve seen so it is inspiring to see how others manage with their disabilities as well.

What has been the highlight of your boccia career so far?

There have been a few but I’m hoping obviously Paris will be a big one. Getting to the European final last year was probably my best achievement so far.

My target for this year was to get two medals before I go to Paris and I’ve achieved that. My second best result was at the World Cup in Montréal where I lost out to
the most top-level players in it – world number one and two – and they got gold and silver and I followed up with a bronze. That’s probably my second-best achievement

Then I went to the World Boccia Challenger in Poznan, Poland this year and won the tournament there but it wasn’t as high level as the tournament in Montreal. I’ve also been to the World Boccia Cup in Povoa De Varzim, Portugal this year where I lost in the quarterfinal to the current Paralympic Champion and then the person that he beat in the final in a row in Poznan, so that was a very challenging tournament as well.

I definitely think Paris will be right up there. Even just getting there is an achievement in itself but I want to go one step further than that. The target is definitely to challenge for medals there and I’m going to try and give it my best.

Away from boccia, you’ve also played powerchair football. Do you still play football or get involved in other sports or activities in your spare time?

That was quite a while ago. I like all sports really, not necessarily just boccia. I’m less involved in other sports as it’s quite challenging, especially this year to have anything else going on.

I mean the last month I’ve been away from home for like 20 days so it’s very uh especially around the Paralympic Games, it’s very difficult to have anything else and having to manage carers as well, which is a constant
Challenge.

You studied at Solent University. What did you study and what do you hope to do in the future after boccia?

I studied Sports Coaching so sport is definitely something that I’m very passionate about. I think the obvious route is to say once I stop playing, I would move into coaching.

But I just enjoy playing it so much I’m not really thinking about things like that right now. I’m just concentrating on what I can do to be the best boccia player I can be right now. So I’m not really thinking about what I can do after. I’m thinking a bit more about Paris itself.

Will Arnott on preparing for Paris 2024

How does it feel to be selected for your first Paralympic Games?

It’s pretty incredible. I was very close to making the team for Tokyo so to actually be going and be selected is a huge thing for me.

It really has been a culmination of a long time, with many years of training with my assistant and putting ourselves in a position where I could be selected and almost trying to force that decision to be made in my favour by getting good results at competitions and showing that I can improve. I hope to continue to improve in the coming years and just hoping for a good result that reflects the hard work I’ve put in before Paris.

How have your preparations been going for Paris 2024?

They’ve been very good. I’ve just come off a training camp in Poland, which was a great few days there. We got to train with the current Paralympic Champion and another couple of players that will be at the Games and that definitely has helped my preparations a lot.

As I said, I’ve had a couple of results in Poland and Portugal that were a little bit mixed but I definitely think that I’m peaking at the right time and that is the 29th August hopefully for the first game uh

So preparations are going well and I’m looking forward to getting to Paris and starting those training days that we’ve got.

What are you looking forward to the most at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, as well as aiming to secure a medal?

I think it’s going to be great to play in front of an actual crowd because a lot of the tournaments we go to try and get people in but a lot of the crowds are your competitors and teammates, so it’ll be good to have people outside of that.

Also, having family watching will be great as well because I don’t think I’ve had people like my dad see me play for like three or four years because of where the tournaments are, it’s very challenging for family to come and see them. So to have the Paralympic Games where I can have a group of people there to watch is going to be a great experience.

I’m very excited to hear a nice big roar in a full stadium because I’ve never experienced that before and even if I had gone to Tokyo, it wouldn’t have been like that so it is going to be the first time since Rio that there will be an actual big crowd there, which is going to be pretty exciting.

Paris 2024 Paralympics: Will Arnott’s results

Will Arnott began his Paralympic debut in his first BC3 individual match against GB teammate and fellow former Treloar student Patrick Wilson. Patrick won the game 5 -3.

Discussing the game, Will said: “It’s a disappointing result. The game was close and then it wasn’t, it just sort of slipped away in the third end. On both of Paddy’s jacks, I struggled to get in and was wasting balls, giving him opportunities to get in.

“Getting those last couple of points on the last end to close up the score keeps the group wide open, depending on results there is still a very good chance of getting through. I’m in the late game tomorrow night so I’ll have some time to decompress, go through that game and come back refreshed.”

On playing against a teammate, Will added: “It’s difficult. There was quite a good chance of playing him but it does feel different. We know each other so well, we’ve come into this having played eight or nine training matches against each other in the week leading up to this. It’s always going to be a challenge but it’s something you get used to.”

In his second individual match, Will beat Karabo Morapedi of South Africa 7-1 but the next day he lost 3-2 to Australian Daniel Michel to finish third in his group and therefore will not reach the quarter-finals.

Will also competed in the BC3 Mixed Pairs with GB teammate and Treloar student Sally Kidson. Sadly, they were beaten 6-2 by Korea and 7-0 to Thailand, exiting at the pool stage.

Talking about his first Paralympic experience, Will said: “I feel like I’ve learned so much from all the games here. I’m a bit older than Sally so ideally I would have had my first Games a few years ago but there’s definitely lots of learning points and I feel stronger to build into the next cycle, which will be the first normal cycle I’ve been involved in, not being shortened by Covid or various illnesses from the Rio cycle.

He added: “We need to go away and regroup and start again. We only started playing together at the start of last year and our third tournament was qualifying for the Games so definitely there’s potential there, we just need to work even harder in order to match these guys.”

Be sure to catch up with Will Arnott’s matches and the rest of the ParalympicsGB boccia squad at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games on Channel 4.

What is boccia?

Boccia is a simple game where ne side has six red balls and the other six blue balls. The aim is to get your balls closer to the white target ball, the ‘jack’, than your opponent.

To start an end, one side will throw the jack. They will then throw their first ball trying to get it as close as possible. The other side then attempts to throw their ball closer. After that, the side whose ball is not closest to the jack throws the next ball. Once all balls have been played, points are awarded. The side that is closest to the jack receives a point for every ball they have nearer than their opponent’s closest ball.
A match consists of a set number of ends, four in Individual and Pairs events and six in the Team game. Once all ends have been played the side with the highest score is the winner.

Boccia is played indoor on a court similar in size to badminton. Players are positioned at one end in throwing boxes and can throw the jack anywhere on court over the ‘V’ line.

The balls are made of leather and are filled with plastic granules so they do not bounce and are easy to grip.

Boccia classifications

Played by athletes with a high level of impairment resulting from Cerebral Palsy or other conditions affecting motor skills, the sport is a test of muscle control and accuracy, demanding extreme skill and concentration at the highest level.

All athletes have an impairment that affects all four of their limbs. The majority of players use an electric wheelchair for mobility.

There are four classifications and all events are mixed.

The BC1 class is for players who have Cerebral Palsy. Athletes will have difficulty gripping the ball. As a result they are permitted to have an assistant on court to pass them the ball before they throw. BC1 athletes are allowed to use their hands or feet to play the ball. Most athletes throw the ball but a small number kick the ball into play.

The BC2 class is also for players who have Cerebral Palsy. BC2 players are more able than BC1 players to grip and release the ball. As a result they are not permitted an assistant on court and must throw the ball onto court.

There are three events for BC1 and BC2 players: the Individual BC1 event, the Individual BC2 event and the BC1/BC2 Team event which is three aside – a minimum of one BC1 player per side must be on court at all times.

The BC3 class is for players with either Cerebral Palsy or other conditions and was added to the Games in 1996. BC3 players have the highest level of impairment. They are unable to throw or kick the ball consistently into play and therefore play using an assistive device, also known as a ramp. The athlete has an assistant on court that faces away from play and is not allowed to turn around for the duration of the end. The assistant positions the ramp under instruction from the player and places the ball on the ramp for the player to release. There are two BC3 events: an Individual and a Pairs event. In the Pairs event, at least one player with Cerebral Palsy must be on court at all times.

The BC4 class is for players who do not have Cerebral Palsy and was first included in the Paralympic Games in 2004. BC4 players have similar functional ability to BC2 players so have difficulty gripping and releasing the ball but can throw it consistently into play. There are two BC4 events: an Individual and a Pairs event.

Check out other interviews with boccia players Kayleigh Haggo and David Smith.