12 Days of Triumph: Levine makes boccia history

For this holiday season, we will be celebrating some of our favourite sport memories from throughout the year. Canada’s Para athletes achieved a lot in 2019, and we will be remembering one performance each day for 12 days.

In the precise sport of boccia, Canada’s Alison Levine is on target for a medal at the 2020 Paralympic Games.

A successful 2019 season culminated in October with an announcement that every athlete dreams of hearing: ‘’World Number One”.

That is exactly the news Levine received when the Boccia International Sports Federation put her at number-one in the world rankings for BC4 players. She moved to the top position after a third-place finish at the World Open stop in Brazil, becoming the first women to ever reach the peak of the rankings in that class.

But Levine wasn’t only satisfied with her lot. She wanted to make sure her fellow Canadian BC4 players also qualified for the Paralympics in pairs. ‘’I don’t want to go to Tokyo without my teammates.’’

Levine, her mentor Marco Dispaltro, and Iulian Ciobanu, fresh from a bronze at the Parapan Ams in Lima, won the gold in pairs at the world open stop in Portugal in November to guarantee Canada’s spot in that event as well in Tokyo.

Back in May, Levine climbed to No. 2 in the world in the BC4 singles after her first career international victory at the Montreal World Open in May 2019 to set the tone for the rest of the season.

‘’It is definitely within my range to be at the top at the world championships and Paralympic Games,’’ said Levine, 29, diagnosed with idiopathic muscular dystrophy at age 12.

In her climb to the top of her sport, Levine is also making a difference off the playing field as a member of the Canadian Paralympic Athletes’ Council. On the council, she hopes to create opportunities for other athletes with severe impairments to gain their own independence just as she has.

It seems that whatever she sets her mind too, Levine achieves.