February 10, 2013 tournament

Yesterday, La Pétanque Marinière of Marin County hosted its first pétanque tournament of the season.
Despite sunny conditions, the attendance was rather small.
This might have been due to the fact that early that morning it was fairly cold. At 10:00 a.m. the thermometer showed 37 degrees Fahrenheit, a few degrees above freezing.
Later, conditions improved significantly and Sunday turned out to be a sunny and very pleasant day.

The club provided coffee and our local benefactor (Jean-Claude Bunand) provided croissants and “pains au chocolat”. Thank you Oh Bearded One!

David Riffo, sports director of La Pétanque Marinière, ran the tournament and was assisted by Christine Cragg our club president.

The format of the tournament was “triplettes a la mèlée”. Liking it or not, each competing team would stay with the same partners for the duration of the event.

David and Christine put together 8 triplette teams that were as follows:

  1. Jean-Claude Etallaz, Francois Moser, Helga Facchini
  2. Dan Feaster, Jurgen Weise, Eva Lofaro
  3. David Riffo, Christine Cragg, Mireille Di Maio
  4. Rene Di Maio, Henry Wessel, Genevieve Etallaz
  5. Jean-Claude Bunand, John Krauer, Nan Walker
  6. John Morris, Dan Velasco, Monique Bricca
  7. Antoine Lofaro, Joss Krauer, Calvert Barron
  8. Bleys Rose, Larry Cragg, Sabine Mattei

A total of four, 13 points games were scheduled, two before lunch and two after lunch.
2013 club membership cards were also handed out. If you didn’t get yours, be sure to ask Christine for it.

Due to a lingering case of Plantar Fasciitis, I regretfully opted out of this tournament and spent a few hours (sitting) photographing our athletes in action.
Be sure to look at them. You might see yourself like you never saw it before.

I was gratified to see new club members Henry Wessel, Calvert Barron and Dan Velasco participating in the tournament. Nothing like jumping in the water right away.

Yesterday was also Evelyne Marchand’s birthday. We were ready to party with her, but due to a severe case of the flu she elected to remain at home.
This didn’t stop us from gobbling up her birthday cake, gracefully provided again by Jean-Claude Bunand.
Happy birthday Evelyne!

Due to a calculating error made while determining the three winning teams (and caught after prizes had been handed out) it was decided to allocate prizes to four teams instead of three.
The team that was left out actually placed second. Its players were paid the percentage of money normally earmarked for the club.
They will also get waved registration fee at our next tournament.

Below are the corrected tournament results.    

1st Place:
Jean Claude Etallaz / Francois Moser / Helga Facchini  – $22.00 each

2nd Place:
Rene Di Maio / Henry Wessel / Genevieve Etallaz  – $6.00 each + waved entrance fee at our next tournament

3rd Place:
Antoine Lofaro / Joss Krauer / Calvert Barron – $17.00 each

4th Place:
John Morris / Dan Velasco / Monique Bricca – $11.00 each

Congratulations to all winners!

Many thanks to Christine Cragg for providing me with the final results, and to Larry Cragg who managed to take a picture of the 1st place team and the 4th place team.

Alain

PS:
To look at pictures of this tournament, turn on sound and click on “My photos” located on the left side of this page