Ayrshire Para athlete Kayleigh Haggo toasts gold medal double

Ayrshire para athlete, Kayleigh Haggo, has spoken of her pride at landing a gold medal double with the Great Britain Boccia team.

The squad returned home with a bumper medal haul from the Lahti Challenger, in Finland, winning five golds and two bronze medals. And for Kayleigh, who is from Maybole, and her team-mates - Louis Saunders and Reshad Saraj - it was their first-ever international gold medal.

Spearheading the Brits were the vastly experienced duo of David Smith MBE and Claire Taggart. Kayleigh, 25, won gold in the BC2 women’s event, then went on to secure top spot in the BC1/2 Team event- with Smith and Taggart.

She said: “I won my first individual medal in Zagreb a few weeks ago, so to get my first gold just a few weeks later has been brilliant.

“It was also my first gold with the team, so I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season.

“It’s been brilliant to work with Claire and David as they have so much experience and I’ve already learnt such a lot from them. And we’re good friends off the court which really helps as well.”

Kayleigh’s remarkable rise in the sport of boccia is all the more impressive, given she only took it up in February 2022.

Since then she has gone on to make steady inroads, which has now culminated in regular outings for the GB team - just as the 2024 Paralympics in Paris begins to appear on the horizon.

Prior to her appearances as a boccia player, Kayleigh was, and still is, a world record holder a numerous Framerunning distances.

But Kayleigh has no time to rest on her laurels.

Ayrshire Live can reveal that she’s been selected once again for the GB team as they head to Brazil to contest the medals at the Sao Paulo World Cup next month.

Fresh from winning gold in the BC1/2 Team event at the Lahti Challenger earlier this month, Great Britain will be keen to make a return appearance on the podium.

David Smith OBE, Claire Taggart and Kayleigh will grace the courts once again in both the individual and the Team event.

Joining them are Patrick Wilson and Louis Saunders – who also won individual golds in Lahti, while Stephen McGuire makes a return welcome after he soared back into the world’s top five following his silver medal earned at the Montreal World Cup.

Greg Baker, Performance Director, said: “Sao Paulo offers us the opportunity to hone our skills in such an important year. The World Cups offer us the opportunity to play against the world’s best.

“We’ve seen in the last 12 months that Great Britain is excelling right across all classifications. We’ve worked hard to increase our strength and depth and we can see that our hard work is paying off.”

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