This two-hour show in the Jardins de la Fontaine attracted a family audience who were able, among other feats, to discover the talent of ten-year-old jousters. The succession is assured.
Fifty attendance at the Feria de Nîmes is something to celebrate: the competitors of the Jeune Lance Graulenne have, today at the end of the morning, celebrated this anniversary with dignity, offering the 2,000 spectators, massed behind the parapets of the Jardins de la Fontaine, a show lasting two hours. Show, hosted by the Pena del Fuego, which was not shunned by a family audience, who wildly applauded the winner of the 2023 jousting tournament, the Sète Enzo Baronetto, but also the young shoots, who are now taking over.
Young Pablo, 10, on the right, opened the jousting tournament.
While most of the rowers (8 per boat) have white hair, like Leo and Claude, members of the Grau-du-Roi club who train every week, the jousters are children, teenagers or young adults. Pablo Lavoine, ten years old, facing his “best friend” Théo opened the competition, armed with the spear in one hand and the bulwark in the other. Perched, like an old veteran, on the tintaine of the blue boat: “I started jousting at the age of 5, says Aigues-Mortais, and I stopped during the Covid-19 period. I then resumed, and I was able to start the criteriums in 2022.”
Pablo, on the blue boat, won his pass against his best friend Théo.
“I like to be on the water and I like to win”
As a worthy son of his father, Morgan, who leads the jousting school of the Young Lance Graulenne. “In general, when the father practices, the son follows”, smiles the animator, in charge of the toddlers whom he initiates via exercises on a truck. A truck that the older ones leave at the end of May, to reconnect with the boats, floating on the Grau-du-Roi canal. “We start training again next week, and it will last until the end of September.”
In short, a season of games, punctuated by two weekly competitions, on Wednesdays and Fridays, from Sète to Palavas, via Poussan, not to mention local events, such as the Saint-Pierre Festival at Grau-du-Roi. “I love being on the water, and I love winning.smiles the CM2 schoolboy, who also plays football. To be good, you have to have balance, strength and patience.” A patience that pays: Pablo finished fourth, in the 11-12 year old category, at the last French championship, winning a bulwark in the process. “I hope to do better.” Succession is ensured within the 50-year-old club graulen. However, the young boy will not be able to pass on his passion to his two little sisters, Fanchone and Maria-Valentine: the Gard club does not yet accept girls.
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