Noah’s determination inspires Mum to form boccia club

BACCHUS Marsh now has its own boccia club, with weekly come and try sessions underway at the Moorabool Aquatic and Recreation Centre (MARC).

The Bacchus Marsh Boccia Club has been set up by local resident Kat Barlow, who was inspired by her son Noah’s participation in the sport.

Noah, 15, was born with a rare form of mitochondrial disorder and had been active in sport before a series of strokes last year put an end to his participation.

The Barlows chose boccia, which is an official Paralympic sport, as a way for Noah to remain active, and he is one of several young Bacchus Marsh enthusiasts who have been unofficially attending skills training events.

“He loves it,” Ms Barlow said of Noah. “He loves that he can play a sport and he’s getting better and better at it.”

Boccia is similar to bocce but is played with a small synthetic or leather ball, slightly larger than a tennis ball.

It is played on an indoor court, with players moving the ball by kicking or throwing it, or using a ramp device, to place it as closely as possible to a white ball called the jack.

The Australian team secured two silver medals at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.

The MARC sessions run from 3.30pm to 5pm every Tuesday and are open to anyone aged over 13 who uses a wheelchair. Participants can simply turn up at the stadium.

Ms Barlow said Noah had trained with adults at Darebin up until now, so the new local sessions removed the need to make a four-hour round trip just to participate.

“Sport’s always been a really important thing for Noah,” she said. “For him to find his peers and to be included, to meet other kids in wheelchairs and other kids with disabilities, there weren’t many opportunities for him to do that.”

Noah has played for the Richmond Football Club in a junior wheelchair AFL team and has represented Melbourne City in powerchair soccer, but last year’s health setbacks forced him to stop.

“So he wanted to make sure he still had the opportunity to connect with the community, have fun and to have a sport to play,” Ms Barlow said. “And boccia is one of those sports that is inclusive of that.”

Ms Barlow said she is hoping that numbers will grow so a formal competition can be arranged, with a team or teams maybe even eventually competing at state level.

“It’d just be great to move towards, hopefully, Bacchus Marsh having a Paralympian. That would be amazing,” she said. “But at the moment it’s just (for) fun.”