Pétanque is a variant of boules sports which involves various bowls and bocce where the participants throw heavy balls towards the targeted small ball. The game is usually played on hard dirt ground or gravel.
The sport can be easily played in any area such as parks, grounds or on a specialized facility known as the Boulodromes. The sport is usually played with metallic balls.
The sport of Pétanque emerged in the early 19th century in France. The word Pétanque means "
fixed feet" or "
feet planted".
Objective
The objective of the sport is to throw the heavy metal balls with an arched back-spin which enables the players to land their ball closer to the cochonnet, i.e. the small object ball.
The player whose attempt of aiming the ball lies closer to the target ball wins the match. The players can also hit the opponent’s boules to move them away from the target ball. While performing the throw, the participants are bound to stand inside a predefined circle on the ground.
History of Pétanque
The boules game has an ancient history. The sport was widely played in ancient Greece and then in Rome and Egypt during the middle ages. In the 19th century Jeu Provencal, a popular form of boules was widely played in France.
In this variant, the players usually ran three steps before rolling their boules. In 1910, Petanque developed in a small town of La Ciotat. The idea emerged from Jeu Provencal, and today it is popularly known as the Jules Lenoir Boulodrome.
Ernest Pitiot initially developed Petanque for his friend Lenoir who couldn’t run and play the regular Jeu Provencal matches. For his easy accessibility, he reduced the length of the pitch by half and restricted the running portion before bouling.
They also renamed the game as Pieds Tanques which was later widely regarded as Pétanque. In 1910, Ernest Pitiot and his brother Joseph Pitiot organized the first-ever Pétanque tournament in La Ciotat. After that, the sport quickly popularized in France.
After the end of World War I, new manufacturing technology of cannonball was adapted to produce hollow metal boules. In the mid-1920s, Paul Courtieu organized the first-ever all-metal boule known as la Boule Integrale.
This Integrale was composed of an aluminium bronze alloy. After the massive success of integrale, Jean Blanc proposed the idea of boule made by stamping two hollow steel blanks into a hemisphere, joined together by welding.
After this, the pattern of hollow metal balls was widely accepted. In 2015, Petanque was also featured in the All-Africa Games hosted by the Republic of Congo. Today, most of the national federations arrive from various countries such as Germany, Spain, England, Madagascar and Thailand.
La British Open is an important tournament organized in the United Kingdom. However, Petanque Amelia Island Open is the largest annual tournament organized every year in November at Amelia Island, Florida.
