20 AUTUMN 2015
Students hear from
international star
Sport and Fitness students
were privileged to hear
Bernadette Leslie, a Boccia World
Championship medal winner,
deliver a talk about the sport.
Boccia is a precision ball sport that
is similar to bowls and is played by
competitors who have a physical
disability that requires the use of a
wheelchair. Bernadette, who was
born with celebral palsy, took up
the sport when she was 18.
She competed for Great Britain
in the 2006 Boccia World
Championships in Brazil and won
a bronze medal when her team
defeated Hong Kong’s side.
Bernadette also represented
Scotland at the 2003 Boccia World
Cup in New Zealand and became
team captain at the 2005 Boccia
European Championships in
Portugal at the age of just 23.
Bernadette is a former
student at the College,
where she studied
Business Administration
and then Web Design.
When the College
approached her to deliver
a talk about the sport
and her career to future
sports coaches, she was
delighted to do so.
Her presentation to
students went down a
storm, with HND Sport
student Danielle Torrance
saying “Bernadette
showed you can achieve
anything when you
put your mind to it”.
Classmate Shannon Baillie
added that Bernadette
was “very inspirational.”
“The talks went great. I
wanted to make it fun
“The talks went great. I
wanted to make it fun
for them, so I shared my
medals and showed them
a video of me playing.
I felt like the students
were very interested and
engaged. When I was
demonstrating how to
play, you could really see
their competitiveness
coming out; some of them
even beat me!
“I think they do have a
greater understanding
of boccia now. Sharing
my own experience of
the sport with them will
hopefully inspire a few of
them to help other people
with disabilities in the
future.”