When the lights switch on at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Sachin Chamaria is often already in position. He aligns his ramp, adjusts it by millimetres and fixes his gaze on the white jack ball. In BC3 boccia, he cannot throw, he directs. Every move depends on strategy, calculation and coordination with his ramp operator.At 35, Sachin is India’s top BC3 player, ranked 19 in the world. But his path to becoming the first Indian to qualify for the World Championship in BC3 has been anything but straightforward.
A car accident in 2008, when he was in Class 12, left him paralysed from the chest down. His family, originally from Lakhimpur in Assam, had moved to Delhi in 1992. “I could have wasted my time,” he says. “But I accepted what happened. I decided to improve my life.”Sport became his anchor. He began with club throw and won his first state medal in para games in 2015-16. However, he struggled to meet international qualifying marks. Watching Paralympic athletes throw 30 to 40 metres, he tried diet changes and extra training, but the results did not improve. “I was practical. I had to justify my time and energy,” he says. He stopped competing in the sport.The dream to represent India remained. He continued therapy and conditioning, training regularly at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Between 2017 and 2018, he began searching for another sport. Before his injury, he had played chess and practised taekwondo. Strategy always fascinated him.In early 2020, just before the pandemic, he tried boccia after encouragement from his therapist and Jaspreet Singh Dhaliwal, president of the Boccia Sports Federation of India. The game, often compared to chess on court, immediately interested him.At the time, India lacked certified equipment. Sachin became the first player in the country to buy an internationally certified ramp, investing over Rs 1.5 lakh. A week later, he competed at the National Championships in Visakhapatnam and won gold. For the past six years, he has remained national champion in his category and also clinched gold at the Federation Cup in Goa.International competition brought tougher lessons. At the 7th Fazza Cup in Dubai, he won his opening match 25-0 but then suffered heavy defeats against Japanese opponents. “That’s when I realised the level internationally,” he says.In 2021, in Italy, he became the first Indian BC3 player to reach the quarterfinals of a World Boccia Challenger. A week of training with Portuguese coach David Henrique transformed his technical understanding of the game.The breakthrough came at the 2024 World Boccia Challenger in Cairo, where he won India’s first international silver in BC3 and a bronze in pairs with Sarita Dwivedi. Six months later, in Manama, Bahrain, he secured India’s first BC3 gold at a World Boccia Challenger.His rise to world No. 19 earned him qualification for the World Championships on merit — the first Indian BC3 athlete to do so. A podium finish there would secure Paralympic qualification.In 2024, he received the Young Indian Achievers Award from Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and was named Most Inspirational Male Athlete of the Year by the Paralympic Committee of India.Boccia, a precision sport designed for athletes with severe physical impairments, has struggled for visibility in India since its introduction in 2016. Yet Sachin’s journey — built on resilience, strategy and precision — has placed India firmly on the global BC3 map, bringing him one step closer to the Paralympic dream and back to the tricolour.
