Claudy Weibel - Shooter | Petanque Player Profile

Belgium's Finest

Charles "Claudy" Weibel is the most successful Belgian pétanque player of all time and one of the most decorated players from outside France in the history of the sport. Born on 30 March 1971, he grew up in Heinsch, near Arlon in Belgium's Luxembourg province, and played his first competition at the age of 12. Over more than three decades at the top level he won 19 world championship medals, two world titles and three Masters de Pétanque, and set a precision-shooting world record of 66 points. He retired from the Belgian national team in September 2025, after the World Championships in Rome.

Career Overview

Weibel's first world championship medal came in 1992 (triples bronze in Aosta), followed by triples silver in 1994 in Clermont-Ferrand alongside Joël Marchandise and Michel Van Campenhout. Belgium then became a fixture on the triples podium: bronze in 1998, silver in 1999, gold in 2000, bronze in 2001 and 2003, silver in 2004 and 2005, and bronze in 2008, 2012 and 2016.

The 2000 World Championship in São Brás de Alportel, Portugal, brought his first world title: Belgium's triples team of Weibel, Jean-François Hémon, André Lozano and Michel Van Campenhout won gold, Belgium's second men's triples title after 1981. Fifteen years later, in January 2015 in Nice, he became the first men's world tête-à-tête champion, beating Tunisia's Sami Atallah 13-8 in the final. He added a world doubles bronze in 2017.

In precision shooting he won world silver in 2000 and 2003 and bronze in 2010, and became European champion in 2009 (with European bronze in 2013). Later European results include triples silver in 2019 in Albena, Bulgaria, and men's doubles bronze with Logan Baton in 2024 in Martigny, Switzerland. His world championship total stands at 19 medals (2 gold, 6 silver, 11 bronze).

In French club competition he played for clubs including Elite Club Ambert, Star Master's Barbizon, La Ronde Pétanque Metz and JP Rumilly. With La Ronde Pétanque Metz he won the European Club Cup in 2012 and 2013 and the Coupe de France des clubs five years running (2012 to 2016), and in 2012 he also won the French triples championship. He won the Masters de Pétanque three times: in 2006 (with Kévin Malbec, Michel Loy and Éric Sirot), in 2015 (with Philippe Quintais, Philippe Suchaud and Emmanuel Lucien), making 2015 the year of both his individual world title and a Masters win, and in 2017 (with Christian Fazzino, Diego Rizzi and Christian Andriantseheno).

2025 to 2026

Weibel ended his international career in September 2025 after the World Championships in Rome, at the same time as the retirement of Belgium's longtime national coach Gustave Moens. He has kept playing on the French circuit. At the 2026 Mondial La Marseillaise à Pétanque, he formed a Franco-Belgian triplette with 2016 Marseillaise champion Didier Chagneau and shooter Logan Baton. The trio won a tense sixth-round match 13-8 against the team of Steeven Chapeland, Clément Bousquet and Michael Feyertag, before their run ended in the round of 64 (32es de finale), losing 13-6 to the team of Fery; see our 2026 Marseillaise results recap.

He also coaches: in 2026 he led Toro Petank and MS Pétanque training days, including 9 July and the season's last two sessions on 10 and 11 September at MS Pétanque's base in Nogent (Haute-Marne), which drew nearly 60 players from France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium.

In September 2026, Sportmag reported that Weibel had conceived a new high-level team, Team Batforpro, financed by Stéphane Rivière (head of the company Batforpro, who had backed Weibel's 2026 Marseillaise entry). The squad of about twenty players, including Bruno Le Boursicaud, Stéphane Robineau, Didier Chagneau and Logan Baton, is due to start competing on the French national circuit, Mondial La Marseillaise included, in 2027.

Playing Style and Technique

Weibel is a tireur (shooter) known for precision. That was measurable at the World Championships: in the 2000 precision-shooting event he set the first two official world records (48 points in the quarter-final, then 53 in the semi-final), and at the 2010 World Championship in Izmir, Turkey, he scored 66 points in the preliminary round, a world record at the time, before taking bronze. Christophe Sévilla raised the record to 67 points in 2011. His accuracy kept him on international podiums into his fifties, including European doubles bronze at 53.

Equipment

Claudy Weibel plays Toro Petank boules and is an ambassador for the brand. Toro Petank was founded in 2016 by Patrick Messonnier, a two-time Mondial La Marseillaise winner, and its first model, a very soft Carbone (carbon steel) boule, was designed by Messonnier with Weibel and Claude Bezat. In 2017 Weibel and Messonnier also launched Team Toro, a sponsored group of players based at the JP Rumilly club.

You can browse Toro Petank's Carbone, Inox, 119 and 119+ competition ranges on our Toro Petank seller page.

Achievements and Honors

• 2x World Champion - Triplette (2000) and Tête-à-tête (2015, first edition)
• 19 World Championship medals (2 gold, 6 silver, 11 bronze)
• 3x Masters de Pétanque winner (2006, 2015, 2017)
• European Precision Shooting Champion (2009)
• Former precision-shooting world record: 66 points (2010)
• European Club Cup winner (2012, 2013) and 5x Coupe de France des clubs winner (2012 to 2016) with La Ronde Pétanque Metz
• French triples champion (2012)
• Retired from the Belgian national team in September 2025

Legacy

Belgium had won a men's triples world title before, in 1981 in Ghent, but no Belgian player has matched Weibel's haul: he was part of most of Belgium's world triples podiums from 1992 to 2016, won the sport's first men's world tête-à-tête title and claimed three Masters de Pétanque in a competition dominated by French players. Since leaving the national team he has turned to coaching and team-building, passing that experience on to the next generation, including Logan Baton, his partner for European bronze in 2024 and at the 2026 Marseillaise.