Anticipation was high as Gibraltar faced off against the Isle of Man at the start of the Special Olympics Gibraltar National Games 2022.

The competition rolled into action at the Bayside Sports Complex on 22 September after a three year delay due to Covid, with two portable Packaworld’s Packabocce courts setting the stage for an international bocce battle.

This year’s National Games were the first in Gibraltar to feature bocce – a sport for people of all abilities that has become the fourth most popular sport in Special Olympics programmes globally.

Special Olympics Gibraltar President and CEO Annie Risso said the bocce competition had been a success for athletes and organisers, who commented on the “high quality” playing experience offered by the courts, as well as their ease of setup.

Malta is the tenth-smallest country in the world by area, a city-state floating in the Mediterranean Sea, and for a week in May, it played host to the Special Olympics Malta Invitational Games.

The games were the first Special Olympics tournament in Europe since the Covid—19 pandemic hit, and the excitement was palpable. Nowhere was the atmosphere more electric than at the bocce event, a homecoming of sorts for a game long played on the island, albeit in a different form.

Long ago, in the time of the Knights of St. John (1530–1798), a game called maghio was played on the island. Using cylindrical bowls instead of spherical, the game would eventually become known as bocci. Today, its Italian cousin, bocce, has returned to the island’s shores, its surge in popularity fuelled in part by new portable bocce courts from Packaworld that are helping organisers grow the sport globally.

Bocce athletes at the Special Olympics Germany National Games in Berlin last week were rolling for gold on revolutionary portable courts that are quickly becoming the benchmark globally.

Developed by Packaworld International, the ‘Packabocce’ courts are inflatable yet fully rigid, providing for a top-quality playing experience while also being easy to set up and transport.

They are widely used in the USA and at national and regional Special Olympics competitions in many other places globally, but their arrival for Germany’s premier event marked the first time they had been used at the very top level in Europe.

A New Zealand business with a reputation for world-first innovations is continuing to make sport accessible to all with the official launch of Packaline – temporary indoor line markings designed for use in leisure and recreation centres.

Designed by Wellington’s Packaworld International, Packaline allows leisure facility managers and sports coordinators to mark temporary courts of play without damage to expensive flooring.

Packaworld Chief Executive Peter Roberts said the lines were originally designed for the Paralympic sport of boccia, which is played by athletes in wheelchairs. 

“Our lines are specially designed to sit on top of the floor, allowing them to be rolled out and rolled up as needed," Mr Roberts said.