"Les plus grands virtuoses de la pétanque sont aussi doués pour l'action oratoire que pour le pointage ou le tir. Ils s'expriment autant avec leurs boules qu'avec leur langue. Sans les mots, les boules ne seraient qu'un jeu. Avec eux, elles deviennent un humanisme."

Yvan Audouard

“The biggest virtuosos of pétanque are as gifted for oratorical action as for pointing or shooting. They express themselves as much with their “boules” as with their language. Without words, pétanque would be only a game. With them, it becomes humanism. "

Monday, August 9, 2010

"Lentils & Sausages" tournament

Mark Twain once asserted “The coldest winter I ever spent, was a summer in San Francisco”.
Well, I can add without fear of being contradicted, “The coldest winter I ever spent, was during a summer tournament in Marin County!”

People coming from the subtropical regions of Sacramento or Concord were in for a rude surprise. They came in shorts and T-shirts expecting a typical Californian summer day. Well my friends, it was colder than a witch’s tit!

And the wind made matters worse. It seems to have a predilection for our pétanque court, and is always prowling the area ready to pounce on the unsuspecting visitor.
I was wearing five layers of clothing and I was still shivering.
But enough with the weather. We came to play, and played we did.

The chosen format of this tournament was “triplettes a la mèlée”.
This means that we were randomly assigned 2 partners that we kept through the entire tournament. As always in such tournaments, luck is a big factor. With solid partners you have a good chance of success, with weaker partners, the deck is stacked against you. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Fourteen triplettes (42 players) were put together to compete in this tournament, and three games were scheduled to be played after lunch.

The lunch consisted of lentils and sausages.
This time the sausages were prepared “a la Savoyarde” by Jean-Claude Etallaz.
Jean-Claude cooked our sausages “a la Diot de Savoie”, and it proved to be very successful. Merci Monsieur Etallaz!

The lentils were prepared by Ken Lee and were also very tasty.
The food was good thank you, but we had to eat fast, for everything went cold within a few minutes due to the inclement weather.

The sun made an apparition in the afternoon, but it was still very windy and dusty. Quite unpleasant! You can (sometimes) control politicians, but you still cannot control the wind (regardless of the bribe).

Right after lunch and before we started the tournament, plaques were awarded to the winners of the Interclub tournament. They were if you have forgotten, the fabulous Tamara, the divine Antonia and the stupendous Tino Lofaro.
The names of these players were also inscribed for posterity on the Perpetual Trophy. Congratulations to all of you guys!

Back to the tournament.

I cannot give you a detailed account of the entire tournament since I was busy fighting my own battles, but here is what happened to my team.

My assigned partners were Luc Pouget and Nancy Mengshol, a relative newcomer.
We narrowly lost the first game to David Render, Jean-Claude (the sausage man) and Henriette Matocq with a score of 12/13.

On our second game we came across the formidable coalition of Evelyne Marchand, Verena Rytter (2 excellent pointers) and Alain Gusella (a good shooter) and I thought that we were in for a good thrashing. We were I thought, literally looking at Fanny in the face (or at her behind).
Surprisingly, the gruesome threesome lost their cool midstream and we ended up beating them 13/11.

On our third game we were on a roll and easily defeated Jacques Gauthier, Greg Putman and Henriette Matocq 13/2.

Most of the credit for our victories goes to Luc Pouget who did an amazing shooting job. I would say that his batting average was in the vicinity of 80%. I have never seen him being that accurate or confident.
Luc, I forgive you all your past mistakes! You are back in my good graces.
Nancy held her own, and didn’t get discombobulated by our opponents’ wily tactics. She kept her cool and managed to place some very nice shots. I predict a very bright future for you in petanque kid!

The top winners of the tournament were:

A cold and drafty event, but still a satisfying day!

Alain Efron

PS: you can view additional pictures of this event by clicking the link (Web Album) immediately below

Web Album