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Hawkesbury’s Jasmine Wins Paralympic Silver Medal

Jasmine Haydon and Jamieson Leeson won the silver medals at the Paris Paralympics. Picture: Courtesy Paralympics Australia

Hawkesbury has a newly-minted Paralympian medallist in Jasmine Haydon. The Bachelor of Occupational Therapy student at Western Sydney University, was the ramp operator as she and Jamieson Leeson won the silver medal in boccia at the 2024 Paris Paralympics on Tuesday.

They were the top ranked team in the world, going into the Paralympics, and vindicates Jasmine’s decision to team up with Jamieson, after the latter’s Mum retired as her ramp operator. It is a great Paralympic debut for Jasmine who only became involved with the sport eight months ago.

Hawkesbury local Jasmine, who has a twin sister, said having a brother and sister with several disabilities, made her study Occupational Therapy (OT) so that she could help her family and others.

Boccia is a sport for athletes in wheelchairs with severe physical impairments affecting all four limbs.

Jasmine, 23, who has represented Indigenous Australia in Oztag follows instructions from Jamieson to aim the ramp and then place the ball at a certain height, before she tips it down the ramp and into play.

“OT’s have had a significant impact on my life with having two severely disabled siblings, I watched first-hand what positive things Occupational Therapy can do for a person and their families,” said Jasmine.

She said it was her mum who initially pushed her towards taking up boccia seriously. “Jamieson Leeson used to have her mum Amanda as ramp operator for her, but Amanda decided to retire,” Jasmine said. “Amanda put an ad up on Facebook searching for someone to replace her as ramp operator for Jamieson. “

My mum saw the post and tagged me in it saying, ‘It’s a shame there’s not enough hours in the day’.”

Jasmine met Jamieson and her mum before quitting her job the very next day to commit to the sport. The rest, as they say, is history.

“Boccia is a target ball sport similar to bocce, there is a white ball called the jack, which is rolled down the ramp first,” Jasmine explained. “then the players have to throw or roll their balls to get as many balls as possible of their colour closest to the jack, with each ball that is closer than your opponent’s equalling one point.”

“Jamieson’s job is to tell me what to do. For example, move the ramp left or right, and I am not allowed to speak, or turn around to look at the balls or the court, and I’m not allowed to make any movements without her telling me. I must keep every piece of equipment in the box which is one metre wide.”

Jamieson told the ABC that boccia, “is not as easy as it looks.”

Meanwhile another WSU colleague of Jasmine, Tim Hodge, won a gold medal in the Paralympic swimming 4x100m mixed medley relay. Both Jasmine and Tim are part of WSU’s Elite Athlete Program designed to support student athletes to juggle their studies while continuing to compete in high level sport. The Paralympic Games end on September 8.

Lawrence Machodo

Highly experienced and award-winning journalist with a demonstrated history of working in the newspaper and media industry both in Australia and overseas.  Lawrence Machodo is our Sports Writer.

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