La Boule NY on France3 TV

Ernesto, Steve & Yngve from La Boule NY were interviewed today on French television, during their second game at La Marseillaise.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

La Marseillaise 2006

The official poster of La Marseillaise 2006 has been published.
July 2 to 6, with a total purse of 150,000 Euros (around $ 180,000).
La Marseillaise is by far the largest petanque event in the world, open to anynone. Every year the number of participants increases. In 2005 there were 12,960 - thus 4,320 triplets. In a direct elimination format, of course.

Some years ago I made a live report about the finals. That's where I met Marco Foyot for the first time. High time for an update in 2006!

Alec Stone Sweet wrote an article about 2005, with interesting inside info since he took part himself.

Interested? A bit of a puzzle to find the online sign-up sheet, but here it is, this year also in English, and you can now pay by credit card:
http://www.lamarseillaise.fr/mondial/form/inscription_en.htm

Only 15 Euros ($ 18) - which includes a lot of goodies they give to all participants.

More tidbits about La Marseillaise on this blog in the coming weeks.