Brussels has the biggest boules

A couple of weeks ago I was in Brussels, Belgium and visited the completely refurbished Atomium. It was the landmark of Brussels' 1958 World Fair. Incidentally that was the last time I had seen it up close. Oops!

Impressive, to say the least.
Nine boules, 59 ft in diameter each, symbolising a crystal molecule of metal by the scale of its atoms, magnified 165 billion times.

Numerous celebrities were there in 1958, such as Liz Taylor.
Suddenly I saw what looked like a petanque video. Nope: old footage of one of the creators showing the clay model balls...

The tubes connecting the boules have eerie, kind of "Star Wars" lighting.
Next door is "Old Brussels", also a remnant of the '58 Expo, a vibrant collection of bars and restaurants. Needless to say, we sat there for a good while to recover from the walk. Also saw that Chez Léon, they now serve mussels with ... pastis?? Thanks but no, thanks. I'd rather have the pastis first, and Belgian beer with the mussels!

Mistral Club Summer Open - Boston

"With temperatures soaring well into the 90's F, eight Triplet teams converged on a sunny Saturday at Clemente Field in Boston's Fens area to battle for the 2006 Summer Open tournament.
Pétanque teams were made up of players from the Boston area, Worcester, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and New York City. Several long, hot hours later, the visitors from NYC captured the Gold, making the long drive up especially rewarding".

Full report on Le Mistral website

Midwest Fall Tournament - Chicago

The Chicago Petanque Club will host the first annual Midwest Petanque Alliance Fall Tournament for doublettes, on Saturday September 23.

Teams from Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Iowa will be joining the action at Forest Park Illinois.

Check here for details and to sign up!

Petanque in Louisville, KY

PetanqueLouisville, aka "Boules in the Bluegrass" is a new dot on the petanque radar.
Mark Southard and his friends only discovered the game recently but are passionate about turning the greater Louisville area into another hub.




They definitely have the right spirit ànd a new beautiful playing area in Louisville Waterfront Park on the Ohio river.
Welcome Kentucky!!

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.

Brooklyn - Bastille Day Tournament

Here are the details for this years' tournament:

Sunday July 16

Players must be present at 10:30am - no exceptions.
Tournament start time: 11:00am

To register, call Frank at BarTabac - (718) 923-0918
To keep things smooth, participation will be limited to 80 teams of 3 players.
Participation: $ 20 per team.
21 courts and lots of boules will be available.

Format:
First round: 3 games to 11 points
Second round: best 16 teams qualified, to 11 points
Then quarter-, semi- and finals.

Non-players are welcome anytime to watch, enjoy the choice of food, drinks and wonderful music by the Blue Orchid Dance Orchestra. The more, the merrier!

Location on Google Maps
Photo album of the 2005 tournament
The fast-forward movie of 2005

Petanque in Charleston, SC

Bastille Day will be celebrated on Friday July 14 at Freshfields Village , from 4 to 9 pm.

Traditional waiters races, food, music & drinks and
petanque games. A good opportunity to meet other players in the area.

Freshfields Village is located on John’s Island at the Kiawah/Seabrook traffic circle.

Famous petanque players

New York Times Magazine:
Jacques Pépin, the chef, author and television host, lives with his wife, Gloria, in a converted 1930’s brick factory on Long Island Sound in Connecticut.

And he loves to play pétanque.

A Country Kitchen: the interview
(if you visited the NY Times website recently you have to register. By clearing their cookie you get straight in again.)

Petanque in Brooklyn

A review of last year's Bastille Day Tournament: 14 hours from dawn to dusk concentrated in a 3:58 min. video.
Rendez-vous this year on July 16!

St Bonnet-le-Chateau

This is the view of St Bonnet-le-Chateau from Obut's factory.
A beautiful town with merely 1500 inhabitants but marketplace for the Forez region.
Of course - noblesse oblige - a stone sculpture of a boule + cochonnet on the front lawn.

Boules on the ocean

Last week I took a drive up to Obut's plant to check on the loading of our next container. Another 6000+ boules on their way to Florida!

Don't be fooled by the "fragile" stickers. Metal boules don't break easily at all, but we also loaded some Ricard glasses and carafes for the many folks who like to recreate a bit of Southern France atmosphere in their backyard.
ETA Miami July 2nd.

Anyone in Chico, CA ?

Pat Wilkinson has been a member of the Oakhurst Petanque Club for 4 years but lives in Chico, CA (about 90 mi. N of Sacramento).

Any players in that area ? Please email us.

Anyone in Raleigh, NC ?

Let's go up one state:

Trish Taylor in Raleigh, NC is looking for other players and hopefully starting a club.

E-mail us and we will put you in touch!

Aiken, SC tournament

Atomic Boule Club sent us these nice souvenirs of their first tournament on May 21.
Impressive trophies!

First place: Catherine & P. Vo
Second place : Pierre & Edouard

Contact the club anytime at atomicbouleclub@hotmail.com

World Cup Qualifier - June 2 & 3

Richard "Ti" Meas, Khalid Mesbah and Hans Jepson (L to R), from La Boule NY won the tournament in Sonoma last Sunday and will represent the USA at the upcoming World Championships in Grenoble, Sept 20 to 24. For Ti this is the second year in a row.
Congratulations!

They beat Xavier Thibaud, Alec Stone Sweet (both also of La Boule NY) and PJ Mallette (VOMPC, Sonoma) 15 to 8 in the finals.


Third place went to Freddy Canesse (Sarasota PC), Juan Garcia (S. Florida PC) and Gilles Canesse. (Sarasota PC).


And below, Barbara Hall, President of Valley of the Moon Petanque Club who hosted the event, and John Rolland, President of Federation of Petanque USA.


Many thanks to Juan for the pictures!

Here is the website of the 42nd WC in Grenoble. They are in love with Flash and long intros so you need to be patient...

Petanque... priceless

A nice article appeared today about petanque on priceless.com - MasterCard's website about new trends and lifestyles. We're very happy they interviewed Mr Midwest Petanque, our dear friend Joe who knows how to explain petanque in a nutshell. He's done it a billion times, at last count.

The article links to our Clubs in the USA page. Any club or group that's not on the list as yet, do let us know. We'll even make a one page presentation for your club, with pleasure (and for free), like we did for Seattle, Boca and Menlo Park until they have their own website.
We cannot stress enough how important it is for groups/clubs to advertise when and where you get together so anyone can just drive by and have a look before deciding if petanque is something he or she would enjoy.

Thank you to the people of MasterCard.