Top duo of Alison Levine and Iulian Ciobanu remains Canada’s last hope for boccia medal

PARIS – Canada’s mixed pairs BC4 team of Alison Levine and Iulian Ciobanu remains the nation’s last chance to medal in boccia after a difficult showing for the team in individual competition.

The duo are ranked number two in the world and won gold at the Santiago 2023 Parapan American Games. Now in Paris, they have won their opening two matches in pool play and are headed to the quarterfinals.

It was a tough start to the games for Canada’s boccia team, despite four strong individual entrants in Levine and Ciobanu in BC4, Danik Allard in BC2, and Lance Cryderman in BC1.

With boccia divided into men’s and women’s categories for the first time since 1984, 34-year-old Levine looked poised to be a strong medal contender on the women’s side, with gold in both individual and pairs play at the 2023 Parapan-Am Games.

Levine went 2-1 in pool play, with an impressive come-from-behind victory in her final match against Ukraine’s Nataliia Konenko. Levine was down 3-1 after three ends, then kicked it into another gear to earn four points in the fourth end, taking the match 5-3 and punching her ticket to the knockout round.

Unfortunately, she ran into a tough opponent in the quarterfinals in Colombia’s Leidy Chica Chica, the top-ranked BC4 women’s player. Levine was up two after two ends, but ultimately fell 3-2.

On the men’s side, all three Canadian athletes failed to exit pool play. 

Allard and Cryderman were both double silver medallists at the 2023 Parapan American Games, but neither was able to come up with a win against a tough international group in Paris.

Ciobanu went 2-1 in pool play, but failed to advance on point differential, owing to a costly 6-1 loss to Ukraine’s Artem Kolinko.

Now with one medal left to chase, three-time Paralympians Ciobanu and Levine are giving their all on the court. In their opening pairs match, they battled back from down 5-0 against China’s Ximei Lin and Yuansen Zheng to win 8-5, including earning an impressive five points in the final end.

Later in the day, they beat the Croatian duo of Davor Komar and Anamaria Arambasic 6-4 to remain undefeated.

They are now set to play Artem Kolinko and Nataliia Konenko of Ukraine in the quarterfinals. That match kicks off at 4:30am ET/1:30am PT tomorrow, September 4th.