bocce@boccesport.com

Bocce is one of the oldest sports ever played. Well over 5000 years ago, Egyptian pharaohs and then aristocrats from ancient Sparta played this their favorite sport with the magnificent bocce balls. From its original homeland, bocce rapidly captured new enthusiasts. For a long period of time, it was the privileged sport only of countries in the Mediterranean area, but in the last century, it overflowed into other parts of the world.

Of course, bocce, like every other sport, has gone through many developmental stages. These stages varied from playing with balls made of stone to sailors playing on boats with balls knitted out of old boat ropes, to playing with wooden bocce balls, to plastic bocce balls - an invention of a new era.

Figure 3: Mediterranean Area

Figure 4: Map of the World

However, this is not the end. Modern bocce (Volo / Lyonnaise bocce system) characterized by metal balls and by new, very dynamic disciplines with strong athletic elements, through which it is becoming an extraordinarily exciting and attractive sport.

Figure 5: Ship bocce

Figure 6: Metal bocce balls

Figure 7: Papak (Croatia), Grail (France), Ziraldo (Italy)

Figure 8: Guo-Wang (China)

One of the most important dates in the history of world bocce is April 14, 1946 - the day the World Bocce Federation (Federation Internationale de Boules) was established. This date would prove to be a turning point that gave bocce a new developmental impulse and organization that contributed to it becoming an international sport. That is why today millions of people on all continents, on tens of thousands of bocce courts from Paris to Tokyo, from London to San Francisco, from Saint Petersburg to Rome, and from Ljubljana and Zagreb to Montreal and Santiago de Chile, are enjoying this dynamic sport.

The best of them, under the lights of the world’s largest sports arenas, show skills that inspire open admiration by the public and achieve fantastic results.

The world’s bocce sport champions have nearly approached sports perfection.