Jamison Leeson is the reigning Boccia World Champion in the BC Three Pairs event.
While the 21-year-old only took up Boccia six years ago, she started her career off with a bang
by winning a gold medal at her first competition, Australia's New South Wales State Titles.
Since then, she's gone from strength to strength, including winning the individual silver medal
at the 2022 Boccia World Championships and gold alongside her teammate, Daniel Michael.
Now she's looking to become the first Australian to take home a Paralympic gold medal in Boccia.
Hailing from a small town in regional Australia, Jamison is passionate about providing sporting
opportunities to those with disabilities in remote locations.
Upon her return from Paris, she hopes to start some of the country's first regional Boccia clubs.
My name's Sophie.
I'm Sophie and I'm the producer here at the Female Athlete Project.
Chloe caught up with Jam as she was gearing up to head to her second Paralympic Games.
This chat proves that if you have a love for sport,
determination will take you a long way no matter where you're from.
We hope you enjoy it and it gets you ready to cheer on Jamison in the BC Three
in just a few days time on August 30.
Jamison, welcome to the Female Athlete Project.
No, thanks for having me.
It's good to have a chat.
Yes, very much looking forward to hearing how you were preparing for Paris.
But before we get to that, can you take us back and tell us about Jamison as a little kid?
Yes, so for me, I guess the most obvious thing about me is that I have a disability.
So I have a condition called spinal muscular atrophy, which I was born with.
So growing up as a kid, I never walked, crawled.
I was never, I was in a wheelchair my whole life.
So that was something that I've lived with throughout.
And I think as a child, it was definitely a challenge.
And growing up in a small town, there was no one else in a wheelchair, really.
So it was definitely a different experience.
But I was always determined.
I always loved sport.
Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to participate in sport as a kid because of my disability.
So there was nothing where I grew up.
But I was always there cheering on my brother and sister.
And I think, you know, that's where my passion for sport came from.
But in terms of my determination,
I've always been determined to find ways of doing things.
And I always did well in school and things as well.
So I've always been determined to do well in something.
And that something is now Boccia.
How did you first get your taste of sport?
What did that look like for you?
I think one of my earliest memories I have is my sister played netball as a very young kid.
And I would always go to her training sessions as a, you know, six, seven-year-old.
And I would always go to her training sessions as a, you know, six, seven-year-old.
And just watch her after school.
And there was a few times that I was able to be pushed onto the court in my wheelchair
and threw the ball around.
And that was kind of my very first introduction to sport.
But then, you know, growing up throughout,
my brother played rugby league for a few times around us.
So plenty of hours driving to watch him play and train with,
watch him train of an afternoon.
So many hours dedicated to sport as a kid.
How did you first find Boccia?
so I found boccia uh when I was again very young but again because of where I grew up there was no
boccia available to me so when I was about eight I think it was I um traveled to Orange
and which is two hours from where I grew up in Dunedoo and they had uh somewhat of a club but
it was basically just kids throwing balls around um and that was kind of how it first came about
but that only lasted about a month or two and then it kind of phased out again and that club
didn't happen so then there was no boccia available to me until I was in year 10 at school and
growing up in a small school uh they had a boccia competition again in Orange and um they said the
other boy who has a disability the only other child who has a disability at my school wanted
to go to the boccia day and they had to take two students with disabilities to play so I was I was
I knew a bit about the sport uh but not as much as I do now of course but um I knew
briefly what it was about but I didn't really want to go because you know I didn't think there
was any opportunities available to me growing up in the country so it was a bit of a challenge but
I went to the day and then uh there was a associate from boccia new south wales there who
kind of said I think you've got a lot of potential in the sport so whenever you're in Sydney next
come and learn a bit more about it and that's what I did can you give us a rundown of the
sport for people who might not have watched it before or might not know the rules yeah so
boccia is one of only two uh paralympic sports that don't have an olympic counterpart so
that's one of the main features of the sport but it's kind of in a way a bit like uh lawn
balls played indoors on a smooth surface so there's a white target ball and you've got to
try and get your balls closer than your opponents um it's one of the most inclusive sports available
and it's played with athletes
with a variety of disabilities so I play in the bc3 classification which is for athletes who have
the most significant impairments so I can't throw the ball far enough onto the court so I use a ramp
and have a ramp operator that helps me play the game whereas some of the other classifications
are for people with disabilities um that are able to throw the balls onto the courts it's quite an
incredible sport I absolutely love watching and I think that element of it being so inclusive
do you know the origins of it like who actually came up with
sport that was so inclusive no I don't I don't know too much about the history of it to be honest
but I know it's been in the paralympics for a long time and you know the history in terms of
Australia with you know the players competing in the Sydney 2000 olympics it's it's been a while
it's been around for a while in Australia now which is pretty cool and I think it's finally
getting to that really competitive level so it'll be exciting to see what happens in Paris
what does your training look like ahead of such a huge event
like the paralympics
yeah so at the moment training as hard as I can basically uh pretty much four days full
time a week with my teammate Dan and coach Ken who luckily we all live in Sydney so we're able
to train together all the time but uh yeah plenty of training I've also got a competition coming up
in a few weeks just before Paris if I want so that'll be good as well and in terms of the
training itself like what does your process look like to actually be the best player you can be
yeah so I guess there's kind of two main things that we do in boccia for training the first thing
is obviously the strategy behind the sport it's a very strategic sport so we spend many many hours
playing against each other and simulating games and things and looking at old videos and old games
and kind of analyzing that but very lucky to have a good teammate in Dan that we're able to train
together and get some good competition against each other every week um but then also on the
other side of things we're able to train together and get some good competition against each other
boccia balls are kind of range from a very soft almost beanbag like texture to a very hard almost
like a lawn ball um so you can pick whatever balls you have in your set but because of the
kind of consistency of them they're never perfectly round so especially for us as bc3 athletes we have
to roll the balls down the ramp and try and figure out what position we need to put the ball on the
ramp to make it go straight and that takes many many hours and many frustrations of trying to get
so you have multiple different types of balls do you have to use each of them
yeah so you play with six balls uh for a game and yeah like i said they range from super soft to
super hard and you've got to use all six in an end and but you can pick what order you want to
use them in so use a softer ball to kind of get onto the jack and then use a harder ball to knock
away i like there's definitely a lot of strategy involved in this isn't there oh absolutely i mean
spend hours i think i'm going to have to do a lot of strategy to get the ball to the jack and then
one of the most important things about the training is just what reviewing games and
your competitors and um as much video analysis you can really what is that process like being
an athlete in a sport that's so strategic because i think as an athlete right you're always striving
to be better like there's never any ceiling that you put on yourself but i think in something where
there's so many different alternatives you're contemplating like the different types of balls
when you're going to play them how you're going to play them like how does it feel to i guess that
sense of you know you're going to play them how are you going to play them how are you going to play them
never wanting to stop getting better i don't know if that question made sense but you get what i'm
saying yeah absolutely i mean which i'm training as hard as i can at the moment but you never know
when someone's going to come out with a new strategy or a new technique and even though
botcha has been around for a while it's it's constantly changing the rules are constantly
changing the way people play constantly changing so you never know what's around the corner really
and i'm sure this time of the year leading into paris people are going to be trying all new things
so just got to wait and see and kind of adapt to it can you give us a look into your hometown of
dunny do can you paint the picture for people who haven't been there before yeah so dunny do is a
small town in central west new south wales about an hour east of dubbo and got about 700 people in
it it's typical country town it's it's got a great community but uh yeah it's it's pretty small it's
it's got a got a good cafe it's got a decent pub uh got a mural of winks and hughes and winks and
bowman who's the jockey from dunny do on the silo as you drive through town so yeah it's a great
place i've lived there for you know 20 years of my life and they've been it but they've played a
massive role in in getting me to where i am today you talked about that mural but there's actually
now a mural of you in your hometown of dunny do what tell us about the mural but what did it feel
like to have that painted of you oh it was it was a massive shock to be honest and i've only been
home the once since it got revealed so what you know it was a big surprise to me i had no idea
about it and no idea that it was happening so when it did happen it took a solid few days for
me to really process and see it as you know driving through town and just across the road
from from hughes mural is something that i really value um you know not only growing up in the town
and being from a town that i'm proud of but you know just to be able to represent people with
disabilities in a town where there are not many people with disabilities and to show the kids in
the town now they will grow up and see that we're all this very special it's yeah it's such a
beautiful mural how does that process work did you know that it was going to be there or did you just
rock up and then it was revealed to you no so i had no idea about it um my mom tried so very hard
to keep it a secret and she did a very good job of that but i was lucky because i was actually
overseas for the two weeks beforehand of it all happening so it was a bit easier to keep it a
the day or two that i was in town before it got revealed to me was was very stressful time for
sure so yeah it was it was such a lovely day when it got revealed all my family and friends were
there so it was it was very cool special moment that's really really special how did it feel
being a girl from dunny do who went to compete at the paralympics um in tokyo to to be on the
world stage yeah it it was tokyo was was was a special one for me and it was definitely something
that i didn't really expect to go to to be honest i'd only been in the sport for three years and
still being and going to dunny do central school and doing my year 12 and my hse in the same year
it was it was very strange you know going to the paralympics and representing australia and then
just a few months later going back to the small town of dunny do and finishing off my schooling
was was something pretty cool but yeah the whole town my my school have always been a great support
in that journey you know i i started and you know i wouldn't have found botcher if i wasn't at the
dunny do central school so you know having their support from the beginning and you know
them sending me cards and all sorts of support letters when i was in tokyo was something that
you know i appreciated and then heading home and you know people asking and it's you know
asking how the experience was was something pretty cool it's yeah it's just amazing what
does it mean to you to represent your country on the world stage oh it's again it's it's it's
doesn't really feel real to me to be honest um especially at times leading into now in the
paralympics and especially paris uh we've had quite a bit of success in the past few years so
i think we've been able to get the word of botcher around a bit more which is something
that i'm really passionate about especially because growing up i didn't have access to the
sport so i'm really passionate about getting more people to know about the sport so hopefully
you know once i do come around to retirement that it'll be an easier job for me to do that
to be able to get more people into the sport and get participation up because
it's something that watch it is like i said one of the most inclusive sports and basically anyone
can play so it's very cool in that sense but yeah i'm just so excited to get to paris and
be able to hopefully have botcher on the screens at home in australia
can you give us a glimpse into what it's like trying to access sport in a regional town because
i think there's obviously a lot more that can be done with people with disabilities in access to
sport in general but i think having that regional and remote layer adds even further barriers to
that absolutely yeah i think it was it was the biggest barrier that i had i think being regional
had more of a barrier than my disability to sports um for me i think it's just that the fact
that there's there is no paris sports in particular botcher in the country and um it's something that
can be worked on for sure uh but
i think it's just again getting the word out is something that it needs to be done really um
watcher is you know it's such a good sport and they need there's no clubs anywhere in regional
new south wales so you know even you just need two or three people to start a club and
getting the word out there and just knowing about the sport is something something very special
yeah absolutely has there been a moment that has changed the course of your
career i always say that my my turning my pivotal moment of my career where my career i guess my
competitive career started was after the tokyo paralympics which makes no sense because i made
made the tokyo paralympics um but there was there was big changes that happened in the sport after
tokyo so um for me i didn't get as much of an opportunity to play as an individual um in botcher
prior to tokyo because there was um
me and my two teammates dan and spencer in the australian team and unfortunately for a lot of
the time you only got two individual slots at events um but then after tokyo the event split
so from tokyo and before it was a mixed sport so men played women whereas after tokyo it then
split into male and female separate categories so that really gave me the opportunity to
guess skyrocket my progression in my in my sporting career because
before then i didn't know what to do and i didn't know what to do and i didn't know what to do and
really get as much of an opportunity and it was a very controversial time for botcher um you know
whether they should have split the sport into the two categories but um it's only positive opinion
for me really it it and i for me be the being the one playing with against the females now i can i
can truly see that the difference you know just from a few years back to now the level of competition
is just so much better in the female population because of the split yeah amazing and is that
something that will carry through in the long term now yeah i i believe so i haven't heard of
any changes of reversing it so hopefully it will stick yeah do you have a favorite failure
again i think it was my my failure would have been my my pivotal moment in my
botcher career which was at the very very end of the tokyo paralympics when dan and i were playing
in the pairs and it was our last game of the day and we played two games before so three games
in one day and um it was against hong kong and we had to we had to win that game to go through
the semi-finals and unfortunately we lost in a tie break and one of the rules with botcha is that
you have to break the ramp which means like move it 20 centimeters either way so you don't cheat
and line up the ramp um on the court when you go out and look um and i forgot to break the ramp
which was a very a very very big mistake of mine um and something that i still regret to
this day but thankfully i didn't have even though we lost that day didn't have too much of an impact
on the results but i think that moment in my career again it was the last end of the tokyo
paralympics and from then on you know it was split into male and female i had to play all four ends
of a pairs game whereas before i only had to play one and i would be substituted off so
it was just one of those it was kind of a turning point and a moment of you know starting fresh and
the big learning curve i had in that game was you know i made a mistake but we we pulled back and
we we did our best to recover from the tie break unfortunately it wasn't enough but i think it was
it was a big moment in my career of starting fresh just you know resetting so how does that
work so you have the ramp is set up and before each go you have to move it 20 centimeters
um so basically so you have four ends in botcha and at the end of each
end there's a one minute break and you're allowed to go on court your coach can come on court you
can do whatever you want basically um and at the start of the end the person that plays the jack
has to move their ramp 20 centimeters each way because they might have their coach or someone
might have lined the ramp up for them to right where they want um a bit of a silly rule in a way
but it's just one of the rules that they have yeah yeah okay got ya what is what's the goal
uh i think the number one goal for me is is just to bring back a gold medal for australia um
it sounds a bit cheesy really but for me not at all and for the rest of the botcha
botcha team in australia no one's ever won a gold medal for australia in botcha at the
paralympics and we did well in the world championships a few years back and that was
that was again a very special moment but you know to be able to be the first people in history to
bring the gold medal home for botcha is a really important thing and i think it's a really important
in australia would be very cool but we'll see what happens a silver would be good too because
they haven't won a silver either yeah that would be very very cool what does life look like for
you outside of botcha yeah so not at the moment but typically i'm studying so i study at unsw
bachelor of economics i'm in my third year so i'll be finished next year i'm taking a break
at the moment for botcha um but that takes up a lot of my time i also am in the process of
getting involved in the participation for botcha so i really want to start up some clubs in sydney
to get more people involved because where i live there's not really clubs available around here so
i really just i'm really so passionate about getting more people into sport so
that's else what keeps me busy for sure yeah absolutely when i asked you the first question
to describe yourself as a little kid able-bodied athletes would describe whether they were naughty
or disciplined or whatever but you actually said the most obvious thing about yourself
is your disability what is that process like for you that that's how you've been almost taught
to describe yourself because of the way that others have seen you yeah i mean to me it's not
even a bad thing like to me my disability is obviously very obvious i'm in a wheelchair i
can't walk um and it's something that i'm basically pretty much proud of you know i don't
see it as a negative thing and i think a lot of people probably watching this and
some people even with disabilities probably don't like to admit it that it is you know for a lot of
people is one of the most obvious things about them and the thing that stands out but it has
shaped me to who i am today and it has you know driven me to be the best in the things that i can
do well in and the things i can control yeah amazing thank you so much jameson for your time
today and best of luck in paris we cannot wait to cheer you on over there oh thanks chloe appreciate
having me no problem at all thanks so much for listening if you got something out of this
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