Pétanque


Pétanque is a sport that falls into the category of boules sports. In these sports, players or teams play their boules/balls towards a target ball.
In pétanque, the objective is to score points by positioning one's boules closer to the target ball than those of the opponent after all boules have been thrown. This is achieved by throwing or rolling boules closer to the small target ball, officially called a jack, or by hitting the opponents' boules away from the target, while standing inside a circle with both feet on the ground. The game is normally and best played on hard dirt or gravel. It can be played in public areas in parks or in dedicated facilities called boulodromes.
The current form of the game was codified in 1907 or 1910 in La Ciotat, in Provence, France. The French name pétanque comes from petanca in the Provençal dialect of the Occitan language, deriving from the expression pè tancat, meaning 'foot fixed' or 'foot planted'.

History

Invention of the game

Boules games have a very long history, dating back through the Middle Ages to ancient Rome, and before that to ancient Greece.
In France in the second half of the 19th century, a form of boules known as jeu provençal or boule lyonnaise was extremely popular. Players rolled their boules or ran three steps in this game before throwing one. Pétanque originally developed as an offshoot or variant of jeu provençal in 1910, in what is now called the Jules Lenoir Boulodrome in the town of La Ciotat near Marseilles.
Jules Lenoir, a former jeu provençal player, suffered from such severe rheumatism that he could no longer run before throwing a boule and could scarcely stand. A good friend named Ernest Pitiot was a local café owner. To accommodate his friend Lenoir, Pitiot developed a variant form of the game in which the length of the pitch or field was reduced by roughly half, and a player, instead of running to throw a boule, stood, stationary, in a circle. They called the game pieds tanqués, "feet planted", a name that eventually evolved into the game's current name, pétanque.
The first pétanque tournament was organized by Ernest Pitiot and his brother Joseph Pitiot, in 1910 in La Ciotat. The game spread quickly and soon became France's most popular form of boules.
Before the mid-1800s, European boules games were played with solid wooden balls, usually made from boxwood root, a very hard wood. The late 1800s saw the introduction of cheap mass-manufactured nails, and wooden boules gradually began to be covered with nails, producing boules cloutées. After World War I, round shot manufacturing technology was adapted to allow the manufacture of hollow, all-metal boules.
Paul Courtieu introduced the first all-metal boule, la Boule Intégrale, in the mid-1920s. The Intégrale was cast in a single piece from a bronze-aluminum alloy. Shortly thereafter, Jean Blanc invented a process of manufacturing steel boules by stamping two steel blanks into hemispheres and then welding the two hemispheres together to create a boule. With this technological advance, hollow all-metal balls rapidly became the norm.

Global spread of the game

After the development of the all-metal boule, pétanque spread rapidly from Provence to the rest of France, then to the rest of Europe, and then to Francophone colonies and countries around the globe. Today, many countries have their own national governing bodies.
In France, the Fédération Française de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal has over 300,000 licensed members.
There are strong national federations in Germany, Spain and England. Pétanque is actively played in many nations with histories of French colonial influence, especially in Southeast Asia, including Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Puducherry in India, as well as some parts of Africa. The sport is also popular in Madagascar and Thailand.
Pétanque was featured at the 2015 All-Africa Games hosted by the Republic of the Congo, a former French colony.
Pétanque is not widely played in the Americas. There is a Canadian pétanque federation based in Québec. In the United States, the Federation of Pétanque USA reports that about 30,000 play nationwide. As of 1 December 2015, FPUSA counted 2,141 members in the US, in 52 affiliated clubs.
On the international level, the governing body of pétanque is the Fédération Internationale de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal. It was founded in 1958 in Marseille and has almost 800,000 members as of 2022.

National and international competitions

There are a number of important world championship tournaments.
The FIPJP world championships take place every two years. Men's championships are held in even-numbered years, while Women's and Youth championships are held in odd-numbered years.
Perhaps the best-known international championship is the Mondial la Marseillaise à Pétanque, which takes place every year in Marseille, France, with more than 10,000 participants and more than 150,000 spectators.
The largest annual tournament in the United States is the Pétanque Amelia Island Open, held in each year in November at Amelia Island, Florida.
Pétanque is not currently an Olympic sport, although the Confédération Mondiale des Sports de Boules—which was created in 1985 by several international boules organizations specifically for this purpose—has been lobbying the Olympic committee since 1985 to make it part of the Olympic Games. Pétanque has appeared in every edition of The World Games from 1985 onward. The 2022 World Games in the United States included women’s pétanque, the first time that only women's events were held as part of the boules sports programme at The World Games.

Playing the game

Based on the rules of the Fédération Internationale de Pétanque & Jeu Provençal.

Equipment

Pétanque is played by two teams, each comprising one, two, or three players. Three boules are used per player in singles and doubles games, and two per player in triples games. A small wooden ball called a "jack" serves as the target for the players' throws.
The area where a game of pétanque is played is called a terrain. A game can be played in an open area such as a public park, where the boundaries of the terrain are not marked, or more formally on a "marked terrain" where the terrain boundaries are marked.
In pétanque, players throw while standing in a circle. Traditionally, this was simply scratched in the dirt. From around 2005, red plastic "prefabricated" circles were introduced and are now widely used in formal games. A circle drawn on the ground must be in diameter, while a plastic circle must have an inside diameter of.

The "ends"

A game consists of several "ends". An end consists of the throwing out of the jack, followed by the two teams throwing their boules. After both teams have thrown all of their boules, the team with the boule closest to the jack wins the end.
The winning team scores one point for each of its boules that is closer than the opposing team's closest boule. Each end therefore gives the winning team a minimum of one point, and a potential maximum of six in a doubles/triples game. The first team to score 13 points wins the game.

Order of play

A coin toss is held between the teams at the start of the game. The winning team draws/places the circle, and one of its members stands inside and throws the jack to a distance of. One member then throws a boule, followed by a member of the opposing team. From this point on, the team whose boule is closest to the jack is said to "hold the point," and the opposing team throws the next boule. A team's turn ends upon either gaining the point or running out of boules; in the latter case, the opposing team throws all of its remaining boules.
If at any point the closest boules from each team are equidistant from the jack, then the team that threw the last boule throws again. If the boules are still equidistant after this throw, then the teams play alternately until the tie is broken. If the boules remain equidistant once the end is complete, then neither team scores any points.
The team that wins an end starts the next one. A player from the winning team draws/places a circle around the jack, stands inside, and throws the jack to start the end.

Scoring

An end is complete when both teams have played all of their boules, or when the jack is knocked out of play.
If an end is complete with the jack still in play, then the team with the boule nearest to it scores one point for each of its boules that is closer than the opposing team's nearest boule. However, neither team scores any points if their closest boules are the same distance from the jack.
If the jack is dead at the completion of an end, and if only one team still has boules to play, then that team scores one point for each unused boule. Otherwise, neither team scores.

Miscellaneous rules

  • Boules can be thrown in any way that the player wishes, but the traditional way is to hold the boule with the palm of the hand downwards, and then to throw with an under-arm swing of the arm ending in an upward flick of the wrist. Throwing this way puts backspin on the boule and gives the player the maximum amount of control and flexibility when throwing.
  • The boule can be rolled, thrown to a moderate height, or even thrown to a great height.
  • At the beginning of an end, if the circle is drawn/placed such that the jack cannot be thrown to the maximum distance of, then the player throwing the jack may move the circle back to a point that allows this distance to be reached.
  • If a boule or jack lands on/near a boundary line such that any portion of it is within the playing area when viewed from directly above, it is considered to be live. It must completely cross the line in order to be declared dead.