Dan has put his studies on hold to compete in “tune-up events” in Montreal and Taiwan in his bid to upgrade a Tokyo Paralympics bronze medal to gold.
“It’s a chance for me and my assistant Ashlee McClure to refine some things and win some matches, and hopefully that will get us to our third Paralympics in good shape,” said Dan.
With limited use of his arms and legs due to spinal muscular atrophy type 2, he competes in the BC3 classification. With Ashlee’s physical help, he determines where a ramp should be positioned and how the boccia balls are propelled down it, using a device he controls with his mouth. Dan instructs Ash (his ramp assistant of 10 years and best friend off the court) without her being allowed to speak to him or look at the court.
“It’s a very technical and precise game,” Dan said. “The ramp is marked in 2-centimetre increments, and I tell Ash where to move the ramp and position the balls, to get the required pace and distance. It’s quite mathematical; you must make a lot of calculations, but there’s a lot of gut feel that goes into it, too. You have just six minutes to play the six balls each end, so the whole process needs to be efficient.”
Dan was a “sport-obsessed” child from a very outdoor, active family. “As I grew up and my disability impacted what I could do, I was unable to participate in sport in a way that was meaningful. I was always watching or playing in a modified way; I was never engaged in the same way as my peers and that was tough. All I wanted to do was to play sport. I always dreamed of playing for Australia or making a career out of sport, but for a long time I thought I would never be able to even play for fun.”
At a camp for young people with disabilities at the age of 15, Dan discovered boccia – a sport designed precisely for people like him. “Once I realised the precision and technical aspects of it, it really appealed to my brain, the way I think and how I work things out. To hear that it was a Paralympic sport was just the cherry on top.”
In 2021, Dan won Australia’s first ever individual boccia medal at the Tokyo Paralympics and – since winning the World Championships in 2022 and the Asia Regional Championships in 2023 – is ranked number 2 in the world. However, he expects the competition in Paris, in the individual and pairs event with partner Jamieson Leeson, to be tough, so he trains four hours a day, four days a week at Sydney Olympic Park.
“Bringing home gold would be awesome, but there are so many fantastic players from all over the world and any medal is hard to win,” Dan said. “Like most people, I like winning, but I really enjoy training and getting better all the time. When I’m playing good shots and seeing the game well and everything I’m trying to do is coming off – that’s the feeling I play for.
“Competing in the Paralympics enables people like me with severe disabilities to showcase their abilities, to go onto a court in an elite sporting field and perform at a high level. It goes a long way towards breaking down barriers and stereotypes around what people with disabilities can do.”
Being a part of UNE’s Elite Sports Program affords Dan the flexibility he needs to accommodate national and international competition. And when his professional sporting career ends, he hopes his studies will have prepared him to help others. “I have a particular interest in investment and would like to gain a financial services licence and go into managing money for people. It will take a long time to get there, but I’m on the way.”
