City lawn bowls team bags SEA games bronze

ANGELES CITY -- Mayor Francis "Blueboy" Nepomuceno gave Monday honors to members of the Angeles City lawn bowls team who bagged the bronze medal in the recently-concluded 25th South East Asian Games in Vientiane, Laos.

Nepomuceno gave P20,000 cash to the team during Monday's flag raising ceremony in front of the City Hall.

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The team members, who came from different villages in the city, competed in the Petanque during the SEA games held on December 8-10, 2009.

"We congratulate and thank the team for bringing prestige to the city," Nepomuceno said.

The city mayor vowed to support the players "in their effort that will lead them to gold medals."

Petanque is a form of bowls where the goal is, while standing with the feet together in a small circle, to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (jack).

The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel, but can also be played on grass or other surfaces. Soft sandy beaches are not suitable. Similar games are bocce and bowls.

The current form of the game originated in 1907 in La Ciotat, in Provence, in southern France.

The English and French name pétanque comes from la petanca [pe'ta?k?] in the Provençal dialect of the Occitan language, deriving from the expression pès tancats ['p? ta?'ka], meaning "feet together"[1] or more exactly "feet anchored."

The casual form of the game of Pétanque is played by about 17 million people in France, mostly during their summer vacations. There are about 375,000 players licensed with the Fédération Française de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal (FFPJP) and some 3000 in England.

Another 20,000 or so play in Québéc. Additionally, Pétanque clubs have arisen in cities throughout North America (Chicago, Milwaukee, Portland, OR, Minneapolis, etc.) as Pétanque is seen as hip by many newcomers, old and young alike.