Singapore’s petanque: Small team with big dreams at SEA Games 2015
A store room in a Singapore sports hall is also a makeshift office, and meetings are held outside on portable wooden tables and plastic chairs.
Despite the lack of a proper office and meeting room, the Singapore petanque team has an ambitious target at the SEA Games 2015 in June – to win at least one of the 10 gold medals on offer. Since the SEA Games started in 1959, Singapore has won only 3 bronze medals in petanque, with the last medal in 2007.
The Padang, Singapore - where petanque will be played for the SEA Games 2015 (credit: Wikimedia Commons under creative commons licence)
In fact, according to the sport’s president, the petanque team will be the “best prepared team they’ve ever had at the SEA Games”.
Petanque is a game where the goal is to throw metal balls as close as possible to the small wooden target ball. Originating in France in 1907, it is a game that can be played almost anywhere and on any surface: on sand or grass, on a special facility called a boulodrome, in the park or even on the beach.
Petanque on a beach (credit: Wikimedia Commons under creative commons licence)
While it is a popular game in Europe as well as in Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos, petanque was first introduced to Singaporeans as a recreational exercise for senior citizens. The sport almost died out in Singapore due to the lack of funding and support. Today, it is no longer an “old-man” sport but one that is played enthusiastically by students in many local schools.
The Singapore petanque team is made up of four men and five women, with an average age of 22. The national team has been training hard for the past year and has undergone several training camps in Thailand.
Singapore hopes that by doing well at the SEA Games, it will help increase the popularity of petanque among the younger generation.
A marked "terrain", or area, for playing petanque (credit: Wikimedia Commons under creative commons licence)
Featured image of petanque's metal balls surrounding the wooden target ball on grass (credit: Wikimedia Commons under creative commons licence)
