In November 2021, Tony Biancacci chaired the inaugural meeting of multi-bowl sports for the Asia Oceania region.
Representatives from Federation International de Boules (FIB), Confederazione Boccistica Internazionale (CBI) and Petanque associations attended the online Zoom meeting.
Twelve nations were represented to partake in the dissemination of recent World Bocce activities.
One highlight was the successful hosting of the World Junior Raffa Championships, held in Kuala Lumpur.
The next World Junior Championships are to be held in Rome, Italy in September 2022, and a pre-qualifying Asia Oceania Junior event will be held in Kota Bharat in Malaysia, at a date to be determined.
The Asia Oceania Raffa Annual General Meeting (AGM) and elections will also be held during this event.
The World Petanque and Ball Sports Federation election were held on November 18, 2021.
The elections were conducted during the World Petanque Championships in Spain and Claude Azema was elected President.
Frederic Ruis, Pascal Hernandez (FIB) and Mutlu Turkmen (CBI) were also elected into the world body under a Petanque centric election environment. Congratulations to all three gentlemen.
A recent CBI meeting was facilitated by Mutlu Turkmen and included representatives from Australia, India, Iran, Japan and Hong Kong.
Much emphasis concerned the potential hosting of multi-disciplinary events combining Volo and Raffa.
A pilot competition will be held in Mersin, Turkey in November 2022 which will include mixed doubles and singles events.
A new Raffa precision throwing event will also be trialled there.
In closing, we congratulate Frank Funari for recently being elected to the FIB Disciplinary Commission and Vince Di Mauro, who was also recently elected to the FIB Ethics Commission.
Tony Biancacci
President, Asia Oceania Volo and Vice-President Asia Oceania Raffa.