The World Boules Championships in Marseille, France July 2015
When our two new members Corinne and Thiery Sarkissian suggested a trip to their home city and playing in the World Boules championship in Marseille – the home of boules – it was greeted with a degree of excitement and disbelief by club members.
Qualification for the international event was gruelling (well we had to fill the application forms in French!) and on 2 July five teams flew in to the south of France for the main championships.
It is an incredible tournament of boules. Some 15,000 competitors in teams of three, from all over France and nine other countries –including of course England. Games are played in venues throughout the city. It is a straight knockout competition of one game to 13 points and while our games may not have lasted long! many of the other games approached two hours in temperatures above 38C with little shade. A team from Madagascar tour the south of France for four months in the summer playing boules – seeing one of them shooting out a boule at 19m was an incredible sight. You can see the quality of the semi-final on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba84NV_offk
We decided to make our ‘training camp’ in Allauch some 10 miles from the city centre and had a warm up competition the day before at the local boules club. We were warmly welcomed by club members, who probably saw a good opportunity to increase the winners pot!
The main championship began on Sunday 5 July with all the razzmatazz of a major sporting event – press, TV and a big celebrity launch. Our expectations were generally low considering the quality of the opposition but the team of Alison and Mike Curd and TJ made it through to the second round – a tremendous achievement, winning them the ‘tour’ cup! Our valiant efforts were rewarded with a two page spread in the local paper, La Marseillaise.
We had magnificent hosts and as well as our boules exploits we managed to pack in an action packed five days exploring the many highlights and restaurants of Marseille – it’s always better when you have a local guide! The trip finished with a full day on a speed boat seeing Marseille from the sea and exploring a few of the many coves.
We came, we saw…… we didn’t conquer but we learnt a lot, had fun and we will be back!!
Graham Cogswell