The southern accent, the Provençal frankness, the Marseille chat. Gilles Gayraud (58 years old) was predestined to flourish at the Mondial La Marseillaise à pétanque, a competition he won twice (in 1998 with Jean Pierre Albentosa and Patrick Vilfroy and in 2007 with Stéphane Robineau and Michel Adam). A trained shooter, over the years he has become a true specialist in spotting. Especially in the alleys of the Borély park, which he knows like the back of his hand. Gilles Gayraud has been celebrating his 38th birthday since Sundaye participation in the World Cup, alongside his faithful sidekick Joseph Amaya and Jonathan Ramos. With the hope of adding a third star to the jersey.
The Marseillaise: You are presenting yourself for the first time at the Mondial La Marseillaise
playing pétanque in 1986, at the age of 21 years. Do you feel like it was yesterday ?
Gilles Gayraud: It doesn’t make me any younger in any case. It goes by very quickly especially. I advise all young people to make the most of it. But I have always enjoyed playing La Marseillaise. It is a competition apart. There are 4,000 teams, in an exceptional setting at Parc Borély, with very difficult games that we are not used to playing all year round. It is one of the rare competitions where the games are hard to shoot and very tricky to point. In all the Nationals now, the grounds favor shooting. But at the World Cup, the extra effort is essential. If you can’t get the hang of it, you can play with anyone, you will never win.
What does La Marseillaise represent to you?
GG: Every year, I look forward to doing this competition. I often come to watch the women’s competition games. There, I have my girlfriend who played. She lost on Saturday morning. I like to see games at Borély. When I lose, I chat for five minutes, I buy my colleagues a drink and I always go see friends play. Beyond competition, conviviality should not be neglected.
For this 63e edition, you are joining the same team as last year with your friend Joseph Amaya and Jonathan Ramos…
GG: It must be our 15e Marseillaise with Joseph. He’s a lifelong friend. We won the international in Pèze-Roussillon 30 years ago and since then, we’ve won the Bouches-du-Rhône championships six times. We’ve had a bond for years. We’re always looking for a shooter. We played with José Benony, then Anthony Michel more recently [demi-finale en 2022, Ndlr]. There, we found little Jonathan Ramos. We’ve been playing the departmental championships together for two years. We get along well, we have fun and we laugh. He’s a good little kid who’s coming up.
What do you think of the level displayed at the start of this 2024 World Cup?
GG: There are easily around thirty beautiful triplets. Not counting the others that I didn’t see pass by. It’s very compact. In addition, the big players are scattered. Dylan (Rocher) plays on one side, Stéphane (Robineau) on the other. Henri (Lacroix) is still apart. It’s really open. Whoever can tell me the winner, I take my hat off to him. For me, the most beautiful part is that of Pierre Maurel [avec Ligan Doerr et Kevin Prud’homme, Ndlr]. There’s a big scorer and two shooting monsters. If things go well for them, they won’t be far from the finish. But there are so many big games. That’s what makes the World Cup so undecided.
Do you feel like it’s harder to win the Marseillaise these days?
GG: I think so. When I had the pleasure of winning it in 1998, it was less difficult in terms of the density of the big teams. There was Quintais and company. But today it’s really different. You can count the big absent players on the fingers of one hand. Almost the entire French top 30 is there.
