Boccia, a sport similar to bowls or petanque, is one of two non-Olympic sports in the Paralympics and with the prolific record of Team GB's Boccia star David Smith, the 35-year-old is undoubtedly one of the Paralympic athletes to keep your eye on in Paris. 

The Boccia maestro, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was one, has secured a medal at every Paralympics since his debut at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games. 

Helping to secure a Team Boccia gold in Beijing, he went on to win silver in the individual event and bronze in the team event at London 2012 before obtaining gold medals in the individual events at both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. 

Add to that an abundance of World and European Championship titles and Smith's glittering Boccia portfolio shows you he's a force to be reckoned with.

The 35-year-old Brit has become a fan-favourite not just for his innate skill but also for his charm and charisma often embracing Olympic and Paralympic fever by dying his hair bright colours while participating.

Surprisingly, however, Smith wasn't a fan of Boccia when he was first introduced to it as a young schoolboy and played it simply as a means of avoiding school homework. 

"It wasn't love at first sight, for sure. I started playing boccia when I was at school, and basically it was an excuse to get me out of doing homework," admits the two-time defending champion. "And then I went to tournaments, and the school I went to was very keen on winning. If you didn't pick up a medal in something, you kind of felt a bit left out."

"Then I started winning in Boccia, I became British champion at the age of 14 and I am still the youngest ever British champion," he says. 

It then became all the more serious for him when Smith began competing abroad and discovered that there were players who could outplay him. 

"I started getting beaten, which was good for me. From that sprang the challenge of trying to improve myself, because I knew I had the talent, but needed a bit of hard work to get to the level I am now," he says.

"Players have inspired me along the way from other countries like Thailand and Brazil. All the players over the past, even Oliveira there, he's beaten me before. When he beats me, it's a great lesson for me to know, OK, how did he beat me?

Jose Oliveira, the Tokyo Paralympic semi-finalist who Smith refers to, is the opponent that he beat 5-2 in his opening match on Day One of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games on Thursday. 

Before his Boccia career burgeoned to its present-day prowess, Smith took up a degree in aerospace engineering having been inspired by his grandfather Charlie Smith who passed away when David was 16.

"He was a sheet metal worker for the RAF (Royal Air Force) during the Second World War. He wasn't very good at taking orders from his superiors, but he was very good at maths," explains Smith. 

"So they kept him and he got me into planes and stuff. He was doing the dust filters on the Merlin engines for the desert and stuff. Like him, I don't like being told what to do. So once I realised that a career in aerospace probably wasn't looking likely, I kind of went down my own path, down the boccia route and I became a full-time athlete."

He remains intrigued by aeroplanes and World War II saying that he is nonetheless "still an avid aircraft lover."

"Anything to do with the technical stuff. YouTube channels are all on aircraft and stuff. I was watching a video about Swordfish this morning," says Smith. "So yeah, it shows you how sad I am!"