Three silvers for Great Britain at Boccia World Championships

GREAT Britain scooped three silver medals at the CPISRA Boccia World Championships in Lisbon - but performance manager Matt Hammond insists there is plenty more to come before London 2012.

ON THE PODIUM: Nigel Murray, pictured celebrating at the Beijing Paralympics, wins one of three silver medals for Great Britain at the World Championships (Getty Images)

Brothers Peter and Stephen McGuire collected silver in the BC4 pairs event while the latter also finished second in the individual event and Paralympian Nigel Murray was the runner-up in BC2 individual event.

"As a team Great Britain were outstanding in these championships, leading the way for Europe with a medal haul of three silvers," said Hammond.

"The standard of the game globally has risen significantly, with Korea setting the early pace for London 2012.

"These results however, show that the British team is competitive at world level across the classes and will act as a springboard for the GB squad over the next two years as we focus on preparing the players for London."

The McGuire brothers finished third in their pool to go through to the quarter-finals where they played world number ones Portugal and recorded an impressive 5-1 victory before defeating Slovakia 3-2 in the semis.

But the duo came unstuck against Paralympic gold medallists Brazil in a tightly fought final, eventually going down to a 4-2 defeat in Portugal.

Stephen McGuire, meanwhile, returned to action in the individual event, winning his pool before knocking out his brother in the next round.

He faced Hungary's Dezso Beres in the next round and prevailed in a tie-break before convincingly defeating home favourite Fernando Pereria 7-2 in his semi-final, only to go down to Brazil's Paralympic champion Dirceu Jose Pinto in the final.

And Murray also finished top of his group before beating Russia's Svetlana Gorgieva 7-2 and China's Zhao Enyang on a tie-break in the next two rounds.  

In the quarter-finals Murray avenged defeat in last year's European Championships by beating Spain's Manuel Ángel Martín 5-4. In the semi-final Murray beat Slovakia's Tomas Kral, who had beaten Murray's GB teammate Dan Bentley in an earlier round, 4-1 but it was China's Yan Zhiqiang who secured the gold with a 5-2 win in the final.