PNZ News

2008 Women's World Petanque Championships

Samsun, Turkey

10 - 12 October 2008

In our pool we lost to Austria 1 - 13, beat England 13 - 8, lost to Tunisia 6 - 13 (we were a bit unlucky in this game), beat Belarus 13 - 1. We still had a chance to qualify but Austria lost to England and we just missed out on the top 16.

In the Coup de Nations. Our team is starting to play better as a unit (Sharon pointing, Laurel in the middle, Barbara shooting). The terrain is smooth and the boules are rolling well. Aussie just missed out as well against China 11 - 13.

Unfortunately we lost to Taiwan 6 - 13 and are out of the competition. We played just little below our level and fell a bit disappointed at the moment. time to relax and watch the other games.

In the Shooting Competition Laurel scored 18 points in Round 1 and 20 points in Round 2.

We are having a good time. The Turkish people are friendly and helpful. The tournament is well organised. Only our bodies are having a few problems adapting to the Turkish food.

Clem

12 October

Arrived in Samsun yesterday after 4 nice days touring in our rental car. Every team has a bodyguard - not sure why. We have a policeman with us all the time when we go out. He does not speak English - a funny experience. Tomorrow it starts with the Shooting competition. First 3 rounds from 8.30am till late.

Regards, Clem

9 October

Arrived in Amsterdam last Sunday evening after a 30 hour trip. Organised a couple of games for Monday on the Museum Square against the local club. First game I cannot remember - but second game was against their top male team - a narrow loss 13 - 10.

Next day in Nieuwegem against 3 Dutch women teams - first a very nice welcome with a great meal and drinks before we had 3 games of 45 minutes. 3 - 13 against their top team - 7 - 11 against their youth team - and 8 - 9 against their second team.

The games were of a high level and our ladies did well to get a reasonably good score with a lot of shooting. The Dutch coach and manager were very helpful with plenty of good advice.

Today we played a few games in Istanbul next to the Blue Mosque. Quite a few people were asking us what were playing and wanted to touch the boules and have a go themselves. Lots of fun.

Marhaba from Turkey

Clem

8 October

                  Laurel Priestley        Barbara Johnston       Sharon Cannon           Clem Boer

                                                                                                                 Manager

We are registered and our images are on the Women's World Championships website. All of us are flying to Istanbul on 27th September, with a 3 day stopover in Amsterdam. I got in touch with the Dutch coach and we are trying to arrange a meeting with the Dutch team for a few games.

Hopefully a similar arrangement can be made in Istanbul with a Turkish team where we will stay for 3 nights.

We then travel by car to Samsun over a few days and do a bit of sight seeing on the way. We arrive in Samsun on 8th October. There will be many teams arriving on that day and we hope to arrange a few games with some of them in the 2 days before the tournament starts.

Clem