Jacob gears up for Paralympics (From Western Telegraph)

Jacob gears up for Paralympics

6:00pm Thursday 16th February 2012 in Sport

KEY PREPARATION: Jacob Thomas hopes to compete in the Paralympics this summer.

NARBERTH boccia player Jacob Thomas is taking part in a number of the key run-up events to the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Jacob will be part of the Great Britain team taking part in the London Boccia Invitational event, which will act as the test event for the Paralympics. The 16-year-old student at Pembrokeshire College will compete in both the individual and pair event over the May Bank Holiday weekend.

The test event will be held on the Olympic Park at the basketball arena, although in the games itself the boccia competition will be held at the Excel Arena.

Last year was a rollercoaster for Jacob and his family, as the early part of 2011 saw him battle against a major illness, fighting a life-threatening infection on a high dependency unit in the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham.

He soon bounced back, and once home returned to training, progressing his weekly training regime whilst he was returning to full health.

Jacob went on to compete for Great Britain in his first international event over the summer where he finished 5th at the boccia World Cup in Belfast, and 4th in the Europa Cup out in Norway.

Jacob learnt to play boccia, based on boules, at the age of 10 at schools boccia events at Milford Haven, run by Pembrokeshire County Council.

He showed talent very quickly and just three years later he was representing Wales in Boccia. He was invited to become a member of the academy programme, created by Disability Sport Wales to ensure that any athlete showing potential to climb the pathway to GB representation had every support and opportunity to make that possible. Over the last couple of years Jacob has been an integral part of the GB team, and he is currently the british champion in the BC3 category