Tournament in Boston, MA

Le Mistral Club announces a Summer Open Triples Tournament on Saturday July 29, at Clemente Field in Boston's Fens area.
Registration at 9:30 am

For details click on the poster, or go to Le Mistral Club's website.

Open to all! Have fun!!

Tournament location

Bastille Day - Brooklyn

I just got back home, and really need to sleeeeeeep, but here already the picture of the winning team:

Congratulations to Juan (Miami), Loi and Mamary (both from Philly).

It was a wonderful weekend.
Much more coming up soon.

Bastille Day in Fairfield CT

Our friends of St Tropez Bistro are organizing their annual tournament again, on Sunday July 16.

Click on the poster for details.

La Marseillaise (6)

And here are the winners of the Finals yesterday:

Kader Bennefissa, Antoine Dubois & Joseph Dubois with a score of 13 to 10 against Jean-Pierre Daudet, Michel Schatz (aka Passo) & Jean-Yves Bettoni.

photo (c) La Marseillaise

For more pictures, results and stories, visit the tournament site: www.mondial-lamarseillaise.com

I think we should go with a US delegation next year, right?

A photo album is in the making.

La Marseillaise (5)

You can view the daily France3 television reports on the tournament
right here.
Scroll down about 2/3rds of the page to the heading Vidéos.

Also the programs of 2005 are still available.

La Marseillaise (4)

A big upset in the first round:
the "3 Philippes" - Quintais, Suchaud and Pécoul - who won as a team in 2004 and 2005 got kicked out in the first round by a team called "Battu" - which happens to means "defeated" in French.
This just a week after Philippe Quintais won the National French Title in Limoges.
There goes their dream to equal Foyot, Melis & Authieu who did 3 in a row in '74, 75 & 76.

This is one of the nice aspects of La Marseillaise. Anybody - "Monsieur Tout-le-Monde" as they say in French - can join in for a nominal amount, play against one of the campions and, as in this case, beat them.
The draw is 100 % random. When you sign up you get a team number. The day of the tournament you buy the paper and look up against whom and where you start. Then you look at the map and for the shuttle buses.

La Marseillaise (3)

The event started off with a bang on Saturday night to celebrate this 45th edition: a huge gala evening at Chateau Ricard attended by hundreds of celebrities and business icons.
Of course the evening program was altered so everyone could first watch the Brazil-France World Cup game on two giant screens.
Following the 1 to 0 French victory the party really took off with an impressive musical show and people dancing till the wee hours.

La Marseillaise (2)

The foreign nations represented:
Algeria, Armenia, Belgium, Canada, China, Comores, Egypt, Germany, Guinea, Italy, Madagascar, Morocco, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine.
I would have loved to see team # 979 from the USA but they played their first round at Stade Roger Lebert, just while we were at Parc Borély.

We ran into the Taiwan team at lunch time. In great spirits notwithstanding their loss in the first round.
They certainly deserved a prize for their original hats!

La Marseillaise (1)

The world's largest pétanque tournament started today:
4,112 teams, or 12,336 participants, coming from 90 (of 100) French 'départements' and 19 countries.
Some numbers and trivia:
- over 200 staff members
- 15,000 lbs of paper for posters, entry forms, player tags, etc..
- 22,000 sqft of temporary covered infrastructure
- 24 different tournament locations throughout Marseille
- 17 miles of total court length, roughly 1.2 mio sqft
- 43 mio lbs of 'boules' used in the first round...

An earlier article about La Marseillaise.