Tournament in Lipno with the world best players won by Thailand

Just read the names of the semi-finalists of Women 4th Confederations Cup in pétanque and you can be sure that Pétanque for You organized something really exceptionnal – World Champions from Spain against one of the best teams in a long term – France, Champions of Africa from Tunisia against Champions of Asia and World vice-champions from Thailande. On the bench the trainer of Tunisia Abderraouf Lakili, double World Champion, in the spanish team actual World Champion in tete-a-tete Yolanda Matarranz, in the french team the icon of world women pétanque Angélique Colombet (Papon), in the thai team the Queen of Asia – Thongsri Tamakord with 15 medals from World Championships (7 of them gold ones). Among the teams who did ont pass the quarter-final you might find for example Madagascar with Fandja Aubiriot, currently number one in women´s classification in France.

It was a big festival of pétanque in the Olympic park Rio-Lipno and in Wellness Hotel Frymburk that we had the pleasure to organize. To complete the 8 best world teams we have invited also China, Germany and Czech Republic, vice-champions of Europe from 2007. Czech players won all  nice matches against Madagascar and they were leading 10-9 in triplettes against France. If they won then the score would be 2 – 2...

 

 ...  and Czech team would not be without chance in the following „penalties“ – shooting competition with one player on each side. But the French have decided for an attractive and active pétanque in the end of the game and they finished by winning 13-10.

Saturday´s matches in Frymburk and commented matches for the public in the Olympic Park Rio-Lipno were just a preparation for fantastic semi-finals on Sunday. Everybody must have liked the attractive doublettes of France against Spain. In the end the players played practically without mistakes. Carreau followed another carreau and the players awarded with a smile and high five even the opponents. France saved three games in a row with shooted cochonet but in the last game they missed a ball with a shoot and instead of 12-12 the Spanish won the match. Neverthless after 3 matches France was qualified to the final and the Spanish after lost all the matches against Tunisia for the bronze medals. Thailande won all the final matches in the final and it was a big celebration of pétanque. If somebody thought that women pétanque in not so attractive then he had to change his mind after the final. In the triplettes the French were leading 4-0 but after in one game they lost by 6 points (yes, it can happen even to such excellent players). Not many mistakes and if some had appeared then the adversory fully profited from that. The final ceremony took place on the main stage of the Olympic Park Rio-Lipno and the winners had the right to sign a volley-ball ball and throw or kick it into the pubic. Czech television made and interesting reportage and passed it in the Olympic magazine. In this shot appeared also Angélique Colombet and Thongsri Tamakord.
 
The three best teams have received remarkable cups from czech company Preciosa – the official supplier of Tour de France. The french team ordered a small copy of the cup for each player which is a big reward as we can imagine how many cup each of these excellent players won in the past.
 
Pétanque was a part of the Olympic Park Rio-Lipno as a candidate sport for the Olympic Games 2024. The volunteers from the Czech pétanque federation were explaining the rules, organized tournaments and the pétanque pitch was practically full all the time with all generations of pétanque players.
 
A funny detail at the end? In the tournaments it´s frequent that players are not very happy with the terrain – for some it´s too easy and for the others too difficult…but here nobody complained it! And what more – the main referee Jean-Luc Fuentes took a sample of it in order to find an equivalent for a new boulodrome in Monaco. None of czech pitches can say to have such an honour!
 
Now you have one more reason to come to the biggest czech indoor boulodrome in the brewery of Únětice – you can see there the banner of the 4th Condederations cup signed by all the players, coaches and referees!