Boccia through the eyes of Sachin Chamaria: Inside India’s hidden Paralympic gem

When the Commonwealth Games 2022 was underway in Birmingham, lawn bowls was still an unfamiliar sport to many Indians. There was curiosity around the sight of athletes rolling balls across the green, trying to get them as close as possible to another ball placed at a distance.

Then came the moment that changed everything.

India’s women’s fours team of Lovely Choubey, Pinki, Nayanmoni Saikia and Rupa Rani Tirkey clinched gold after beating South Africa. Suddenly, lawn bowls had the country’s attention. Fans began looking up the rules, understanding the format and learning more about a sport that had, until then, largely flown under the radar.

The fascination grew further when Sunil Bahadur, Navneet Singh, Chandan Kumar Singh and Dinesh Kumar won silver in the men’s fours event. Lawn bowls had gone from an unfamiliar name to an overnight sensation.

Since then, more and more Indians have embraced the sport, with the intrigue continuing at the recently concluded Commonwealth Games 2026.

But what if we told you there is another sport where precision is everything, the target is called a jack and every delivery can be the difference between victory and defeat?

Welcome to the world of boccia.

And if you’re wondering how to pronounce it, it’s ‘Bot-cha.’

To understand this lesser known para sport, we spoke to one of India’s leading boccia players, Sachin Chamaria.

A JOURNEY OF RESILIENCE

Sachin’s journey has been defined by resilience.

His life changed forever after a road accident in Kolkata in 2008, when he was just 17. The injuries left him paralysed from the neck down, affecting all four limbs as well as several essential bodily functions.

Before the accident, Sachin was a talented martial artist who had represented India and won a national level taekwondo championship. He was also deeply passionate about sport, regularly playing football and cricket.

The accident, however, could not take the athlete out of Sachin.

He was determined to find another sport in which he could compete. Only this time, it was the sport that found him.

Sachin initially took up club throw and enjoyed some success. But he soon realised that reaching the highest level in the discipline would be difficult.

“There is an MQS, which is minimum qualification score. If you want to compete at international levels or if you want to compete at very good levels, then you have to throw a particular distance; you have to throw minimum up to that level.”

“If I’m not wrong, it’s around 19 or 20 metres, around 18 or 19 metres around there. Now it has changed. 18-19 metres around was your minimum qualification score.”

“The people who were bringing medals internationally were throwing around 27, 28, 29, 30 metres.”

“And in spite of vigorous therapy, taking diet into control, focusing on the specific muscles which are required for throwing, I was not able to reach, go far beyond 16 or 17 metres,” said Sachin.

That setback eventually led to a conversation that would alter the course of his sporting life.

His physiotherapist suggested that Sachin look for a sport that could make better use of his strongest asset, his mind.

“He said, your brain is sharp and you like things in which you have to apply your mind. So why don’t you look at it? Try it once and see. I said, okay, I will read about it.”

“So when I started reading about it, it really fascinated me because when I was young and everything, I used to love playing strategy games. I still love playing chess.”

“Sports where you have to apply your brain and think strategically has always grabbed my attention or has always piqued my interest in it.”

“So boccia, when I read about it, I found that there is a lot of importance of strategy in this. So let me try it. Then I called the Boccia Federation of India. I want to play this game. What is the process? How can I start? What do I need? What things I have to do?”

“So they came to my home. They explained to me what the game is and what all is required for it, and then I started playing. And since I started playing this game, I fell in love with it,” said Sachin.

And just like that, Sachin found his sport.

WHAT IS BOCCIA?

Boccia has no Olympic counterpart and is specifically designed for athletes with disabilities affecting locomotor function. Played indoors on a court similar in size to a badminton court, the sport revolves around precision, control and strategy. Athletes throw, kick or use a ramp to propel leather balls filled with plastic granules, with the objective of getting them as close as possible to the white target ball, known as the jack.

The jack is thrown first to begin the game, followed by six red balls for one side and six blue balls for the other. The side whose ball is farther from the jack continues to play until it gets closer to the target or runs out of balls. Once all the balls have been played, a side earns one point for every ball that is closer to the jack than the opponent’s nearest ball.

On the surface, the concept may appear simple. In reality, boccia is a game of precision, calculation and strategy, where even the smallest error can change the outcome.

FOUR CLASSIFICATIONS, ONE SPORT

Boccia players are divided into four classifications based on the nature of their disability and their functional ability. All athletes have impaired functional ability in all four limbs.

BC1 athletes have cerebral palsy and can consistently use their hands or feet to propel the ball. They can also have an aide on court to pass them the ball before each shot.

BC2 players also have cerebral palsy but possess greater functional ability than BC1 athletes and can consistently use their hands to propel the ball.

BC3 athletes have cerebral palsy or another disability affecting all four limbs and are unable to throw or kick the ball into play. They can therefore use an assistive device such as a ramp, with an assistant known as a ‘ramper’ helping them.

BC4 is for athletes who do not have cerebral palsy but have another disability affecting all four limbs and possess functional ability similar to BC2 athletes. Conditions such as muscular dystrophy and tetraplegia fall under this classification.

Sachin belongs to the BC3 category and explained how athletes are divided based on their physical abilities.

“According to the the athlete, his/her limb strength, how much power is there in his hands or legs, or what is his neurological condition helps dividing the game into categories.”

“So athletes who play in BC1, BC2 and BC4, they have some kind of power in their hands and legs. So they are able to throw the balls with the help of their hands or kick the ball with the help of their feet.”

“BC3 is the only category in which an athlete doesn’t have sufficient power to kick the ball with his feet or enough power in his hands to grab the ball and throw it with his/her hands. So, in the BC3 category only, you are given a ramp and a ramp operator,” said Sachin.

BOCCIA AND LAWN BOWLS: A COMMON ROOT

For anyone who discovered lawn bowls during the Commonwealth Games, the similarities with boccia may immediately stand out. Both sports involve precision, positioning and getting a ball as close as possible to a target.

But the connection goes deeper than that.

Sachin explained that boccia and lawn bowls can trace their origins back to another sport.

“See, there are three games. One is my game, that is boccia. There’s another game known as bocce. And then lawn bowls.”

“So the original game, the first game that was developed, was bocce. Boccia and lawn bowls are derived from that.”

“Only the objective is the same. In all three games is that your ball should be near to the jack.”

“But apart from the objective, the rules, the strategy, the material, the kind of balls you use, the amount of ground you play on, the rest, everything is totally different,” said Sachin.

So while the three sports share a common objective, the way they achieve it is vastly different.

HOW IS BOCCIA DIFFERENT FROM LAWN BOWLS?

The biggest difference comes down to movement.

Unlike lawn bowls, where the ball follows a curved trajectory, boccia players want the ball to travel in as straight a line as possible. That makes the playing surface crucial.

Sachin uses the pointer to control the direction of the balls (Courtesy: Sachin Chamaria)

“We want the surface to be as flat as possible. Probably zero level, which we call ground level. If you measure it from the water level, it should be absolutely level. We want it like that.”

“Because our balls need to go exactly straight. It’s like you are shooting a target. We don’t want wind resistance; we don’t want anything.

“You are given a pointer. I am just touching the ball with the help of a pointer and gravity is doing the rest of its work.”

“From a certain height, the ball is rolling down. I have taken aim at a certain direction. If the ball turns or turns around, then where I intend the ball to go, it will not go there. So that is a very big difference between boccia and lawn bowls.”

“In lawn bowls, the ball is such that you have a trajectory, you have a circular path. We want a linear path. Ours should go absolutely straight,” said Sachin.

That precision raises another set of questions. How do players control the speed? Are all boccia balls the same? And how does the ramp come into play?

Sachin’s answer reveals just how much physics and mathematics are involved in the sport.

“There is a specific standard size for ramps. You cannot exceed a certain height and the ramp cannot be below a certain height. So there are some specifications given over there.”

“And then there are different kinds of balls. Every ball has a different purpose. There is a super soft ball, soft ball, medium soft, medium, medium hard, hard and super hard.”

“If you drop any heavy thing from the same height, in comparison, that thing will roll a little faster or go a little further. So similarly, the weight of our balls is a little different. Their material is a little different because the hard ball’s job is to smash. The soft ball’s job is for placement.

“With the medium ball, you can do both. So it is of different kinds. So if you throw a hard ball and a soft ball from the same height, the soft ball will not go as far as your hard ball will go.”

“So you have to keep calculations in this. You have to do a lot of things, like how many metres, from how much height for the ramp, how far will the ball go? You have to make charts of everything.

The technical complexity is what makes boccia so fascinating. A player isn’t simply deciding where to send the ball. They are calculating the trajectory, speed, height and type of ball required for every situation.

WHY BOCCIA COULD BE A GAME CHANGER FOR INDIA

Sachin has emerged as one of the pioneers of boccia in India. A six time national champion, he recently returned from the Cairo 2026 World Boccia Challenger with two medals, silver in the BC3 Pairs competition alongside Sarita Dwivedi and bronze in the BC3 Individual event.

The Cairo Challenger is an important stop on the World Boccia calendar and forms part of the official world ranking circuit, giving competitors an opportunity to earn valuable ranking points against some of the sport’s top athletes.

But Sachin’s ambitions extend well beyond his own medal cabinet.

He wants India to make its presence felt at the Paralympics.

Boccia has featured at the Paralympic Games since 1984, but India has never sent an athlete to compete in the sport. For Sachin, changing that is the next big challenge.

“India has never participated till today. Because before 2018, this game was not even there in India. We didn’t know that there was any game called boccia.”

“So this is one particular sport. If India is not participating, you are immediately down by 36 medals. The rest of the countries are playing. India has not participated in this sport. No athlete has been sent, for whatever reasons.”

“Then how do you expect India to compete with countries like China, Korea, Japan, US when their athletes are already playing this game? Because when your athlete itself is not going, you are automatically down by that many medals.”

“So that is also a very big reason that whether you win or you lose, that is the next stage. The first stage, the first stage is at least that India starts representing in this sport at the highest level,” said Sachin.

For Sachin, however, the fight is not simply about adding another sport to India’s Paralympic medal hunt. It is about making boccia visible to people who may never have known that a sport like this existed.

He hopes his own story can help open that door for others.

“This is one of the most inclusive sports. If someone is there to teach, encourage, motivate, guide and support you a little, when there is no power in your body, just if your brain is active and if you are able to understand this game, you only need that much. This is the beauty of this game.”

“My idea is to make people aware about it. So that if someone is going through an injury like mine or a condition or something, maybe if they are aware about it, I can guide and introduce and say why don’t you also try this?”

“This is available in India and it can change the life of thousands of people around,” said Sachin while signing off.

Lawn bowls may have already opened the door for Indians to discover an unfamiliar sport. Boccia could be the next one.

For a country looking to expand its Paralympic footprint, the sport offers more than just another medal opportunity. It offers a pathway for athletes with significant physical disabilities to compete, strategise and dream on the biggest stage.

And if Sachin Chamaria has anything to do with it, India won’t remain a spectator for much longer.

– Ends

Published On:

Sep 6, 2026 16:00 IST