Boules

SPORTS. Part 3

BOULES

(in full jeu de boules, a collective term for ball games involving metal balls aimed at a smaller target ball)

Bocce - (bocci, boccie) - an Italian variety of lawn bowling played on a dirt court that is shorter and narrower than the rink of a bowling green. Players roll heavy balls across an area of ground and try to get each ball to stop as near as possible to a smaller ball.

Boccia - is a precision ball sport, similar to bocce. The sport is contested at local, national and international levels, by athletes with more severe physical disabilities. It was originally designed to be played by people with cerebral palsy but now includes athletes with other severe disabilities affecting motor skills. In 1984 it became a Paralympic sport, and in 2008 was being practised in over fifty countries worldwide. Boccia can be played by individuals, pairs, or teams of three. All events are mixed gender. The aim of the game is to throw leather balls - coloured red or blue (which side gets which is determined by a coin toss) - as close as they can to a white target ball, or jack.

Boßeln (Klootschieten) - Klootschieten ("Ball shooting" in English) is a sport in the Netherlands and East Frisia, Germany. In the game, participants try to throw a ball (the kloot) as far as they can. It is most popular in the eastern regions of Twente and Achterhoek. There are three styles: field, street and standing.

Video in German

Boule lyonnaise - a sport played by individuals, pairs, or teams of four, which involves placing the maximum balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball for a goal. The player is a shooter or a pointer.

(Video in French)

Bowls (lawn bowling) - a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a pitch which may be flat (for "flat-green bowls") or convex or uneven (for "crown-green bowls"). It is normally played outdoors although there are some indoor venues and the surface is either natural grass, artificial turf, or cotula (in New Zealand). It has been traced certainly to the 13th century, and conjecturally to the 12th.

Curling - a sport involving ice, brooms, and originally a rock. A game originating in Scotland in which two four-person teams slide heavy oblate stones toward the center of a circle at either end of a length of ice. Members of a team use brooms to sweep the surface of the ice in the path of the stone to control its speed and direction A game is mainly played in Scotland and Canada. Unlike hockey, it is not taken seriously in the United States. Many suspect that it is a byproduct of both the cold Northern climate and the Canadian propensity for beer.

Pétanque - is a form of boules where the goal is, while standing inside a starting circle with both feet on the ground, to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (literally "piglet") or jack. It is also sometimes called abouchon (literally "little bowl") or le petit ("the small one"). The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel, but can also be played on grass, sand or other surfaces. The current form of the game originated in 1907 in southern France.

Shuffleboard (deck shuffleboard, shuffle-board, shovelboard, shovel-board and shove-board) is a game in which players use broom-shaped paddles to push weighted pucks, sending them gliding down a narrow and elongated court, with the purpose of having them come to restwithin a marked scoring area. As a more generic term, it refers to the family ofshuffleboard-variant games as a whole. The full history of shuffleboard is not known.

Varpa - an old outdoor game. The game dates back to the Viking Age and survived in Gotland together with several other medieval or Viking games. The game can be described as a version of boules but played with a flat and heavy thrower known as "varpa" instead of balls. These used tobe well-shaped stones, but nowadays aluminium is more popular. Varpa is an old word which simply means "to throw".

(Video in Swedish)

Extreme Boule (Terminology)

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