Europetanque 2008

Europetanque d'Azur got started in 2002, thanks to Jean-Claude Muscat, a retired police commissioner in Nice. Much smaller than la Marseillaise, because it is limited to 512 triplet teams, but more international and - since there's no overlap with any other French competition that weekend -, all the French top notch players are there.

For whatever reason their official website has no info at all about 2008. Empty as a bottle of pastis after the apéro... :-)

There were two US Teams this year:
Robert Pierre, Christian Triay (both LAPC) and Gérard Canabou (Boule du Desert) unfortunately got knocked out in the first round. And then went to cheer on the other team, Jean-Pierre Subrenat, Xavier Thibaud & Eric Bertin (all LBNY).

They were on a roll: in the first round they beat a local team from Nice, who were much more familiar with the big stones with tar terrain. But once they got the hang of it they were able to turn a 1 to 7 into a 13 to 8.
Next they were up against the team that will represent Monaco in the World Championships in Senegal. Another win. Followed by a win against a top team that included a player from Mauritania ranked amongst the top shooters worldwide.
That brought them to the 32th finals on the Promenade des Anglais (the Champs-Elysées of Nice) to face Damien Hureau, Julien Lamour & David Le Dantec, all world champions at one time or another. They did win two rounds at one point each, for a final score of 13 to 2. Not bad at all, if you know that the Hureau team went on to win the tournament after defeating Michel Loy's team, then Grazzini/Giorgo/Piezzoli by 13-0 and then the Belgian team of Van Campenhout/Hemon/Masuy by 13-12 in the final. A final that lasted 1:40 min and was at one stage in Belgium's favor at 11 to 2...

Congrats to our USA team, who at first were regarded as merely "des touristes" but at the end respected as really "des boulistes"!
Thanks to Jean-Pierre for the team photos.
And here are the winners: