When you attempt to write about an event that you witnessed (and photographed), the first thing that you need to do is triage. You need to go through the hundreds of shots that you took and discard the undesirables. And it is a difficult and times consuming task… but you to learn to suffer for what you love… Then you can look at the pictures while writing what you witnessed.
In many respects, photography is somewhat like pétanque… sometimes you hit, and many times you miss. And due to the many shaded areas of our beautiful field, I bungled a lot of shots. But, c’est la vie… One word of advice though… if you want to look your best in pictures, don’t wear black… or white. They absorb or reflect the light and prevent a photographer from taking clear, well-focused pictures.
All right, let’s get down to business. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I missed the opening of the tournament, but I will try to redeem myself. So on August 8th, I managed to make it to the field around 12:30 while everybody was munching (and moaning about lost games).
The weather was partly cloudy and ideal for pétanque.
As I was made aware, 30 select doublettes made it to the field, ready to brawl (and some almost came to that). The Heavy Weights (bogeymen) made it to the Concours, and the others were shown the door to the Consolante.
By the way, I want to pay tribute to Christine Cragg for a well-run tournament. It is never as easy as it looks, and she did a great job. Merci mille fois Christine!
In the afternoon, while I was busy putting as much stuff as possible on film, people lived and died on the field. I got to watch the fight between Max/Antoine Lofaro versus Paul Yang/Jer Thao and it was Homeric. The Lofaros won by a very thin margin and made it to the finals.
I got a few glances at the game between Paul Kos and Isabelle Kos and Brigitte Moran and John-Philip Wyek. I was surprised by the skills of the Kos formation that literally tore apart two seasoned players. If I am not mistaken, Paul and Isabelle won First Place in the Consolante. Congrats guys!
The finals saw Wolfie Kurz and Mickey Coughlin (two heavyweights) battling Antoine and Max Lofaro, also two very good players.
Mickey played as a pointer and Wolfie as the shooter. They were in total sync and played beautifully, especially on gravel. On the Lofaro side, Max was the pointer, and Antoine was the shooter. From the beginning though they did not fare well. They lost 4 points on the first mène, and it looked bad. While Wolfie and Mickey continued to be extremely accurate, and Antoine missed a few crucial shots. In the finals it is deadly.
Mickey and Wolfie won 13/5.
Concours
1st place: Mickey Coughlin and Wolfie Kurz: $260.00 ea Gold medal
2nd place: Max and Antoine Lofaro $173.00 ea Silver medal
3rd place: Janice Bissonette and Mike Lee $130.00 ea Bronze medal
Consolante:
1st place: Paul and Isabelle Kos $103.00 ea
2nd place: Chong Xiong and Linda Bedrossian $69.00 ea
3rd place: Joe LaTorre and Rob Everett $43.00 ea
Alain
PS: to watch the pictures, click on “My photos”
The photos of the Consolante winners were taken by Christine Cragg
Thank you Alain, for thé generous coverage of our participation in the tournament!
Thank you very much Paul. I appreciate you taking the time to write a comment.