Mouna Béji - Tunisia's Most Decorated Pétanque Player | Petanque Player Profile

Mouna Béji - Quick Facts

Tunisia's Most Decorated Pétanque Player

Mouna Béji is the most successful pétanque player in Tunisian history. A physical education teacher who took up the sport at 11, encouraged by her father, she has spent nearly two decades winning World Championship medals, African titles, and Mediterranean Games golds for Tunisia - and in 2025 she gave the country a first that had eluded every other Tunisian athlete: gold at the World Games.

Career Overview

Béji's first World Championship title came in 2011, when she won the Women's Triplette World Championship in Antalya, Turkey, partnering Monia Sahhal, Nadia Ben Abdessalem and Saoussen Belaïd. Twelve years later, at the 50th World Pétanque Championship in Cotonou, Benin, in September 2023, she added an individual title, beating Algeria's Aït Idir Gidgia in the tête-à-tête final - the same championship at which Marcel Gbetable became Benin's first-ever world champion.

Between her two FIPJP titles, Béji built a long record of continental and regional success: African Championship triplette gold in 2019 and again in 2024, and four Mediterranean Games doubles titles, in 2009, 2013, 2018 and 2022. In July 2025 she added a women's doubles title at the Mondial de Pétanque Laurent Barbero in Fréjus, France - a major international open tournament rivalling the Mondial la Marseillaise in prestige, though not an official FIPJP World Championship - partnering Asma Belli to beat France's Myriam Chambéron and Emilie Papegay in the final.

Béji's landmark year came in August 2025, at the World Games in Chengdu, China. She won gold in Women's Precision Shooting on 16 August, beating China's Yan Linlin 35-31, with Thailand's Nantawan Fueangsanit taking bronze. The same week, partnering Mohamed Khaled Bougriba, she won gold in Mixed Petanque Classic Doubles, beating a Thai pairing that included Ratchata Khamdee 10-9 in the final. The two golds were Tunisia's first-ever World Games medals in any sport, and Béji was personally responsible for both of them.

Since 2018, Béji has played her club pétanque for Canuts de Lyon in France, with whom she won the European Club Cup in 2019. She has also won multiple French national titles as a naturalized club competitor, including triplette championships in 2021, 2022 and 2025 and a doubles title in 2023.

At the 2026 Mediterranean Games in Taranto, Italy, Béji won two more medals. She partnered Ahlem Hadj Hassen in women's doubles to beat Turkey 13-3 for bronze, a fifth Mediterranean Games doubles medal to add to her four doubles golds from 2009-2022. She also won a first Games medal in an individual event: bronze in Women's Precision Shooting, beating Italy's Sara Ferrera 43-40 in the classification match after a narrow 36-37 semifinal loss to France's Nelly Peyré, who went on to take silver behind Spain's Alba Valiente Quereda. Full results in our Mediterranean Games recap.

Playing Style and Technique

Béji is a tireuse (shooter), the role responsible for precision strikes that dislodge an opponent's boules, and her Women's Precision Shooting gold at the 2025 World Games - a discipline that tests nothing but that skill in isolation - is the clearest evidence of how far ahead of the field she is in the role. In mixed-team competition she has also played the milieu (middle) position, giving her the flexibility to anchor both ends of a lineup.

Achievements and Honors

• Mediterranean Games bronze, Women's Doubles (Taranto, 2026), with Ahlem Hadj Hassen
• Mediterranean Games bronze, Women's Precision Shooting (Taranto, 2026)
• World Champion, women's triplette (Antalya, Turkey, 2011), with Monia Sahhal, Nadia Ben Abdessalem and Saoussen Belaïd
• World Champion, individual (Cotonou, Benin, 2023), beating Algeria's Aït Idir Gidgia
• World Games gold, Women's Precision Shooting (Chengdu, China, 2025), beating China's Yan Linlin 35-31
• World Games gold, Mixed Petanque Classic Doubles (Chengdu, China, 2025), with Mohamed Khaled Bougriba - Tunisia's first-ever World Games golds
• Women's doubles champion, Mondial de Pétanque Laurent Barbero (Fréjus, France, 2025), with Asma Belli
• Four-time Mediterranean Games doubles champion (2009, 2013, 2018, 2022)
• African Championship triplette champion (2019, 2024)
• European Club Cup champion (2019), with Canuts de Lyon

Legacy

Mouna Béji has been Tunisia's standard-bearer in pétanque for close to two decades, and her 2025 World Games golds gave the country a first that fourteen years of World Championship success had not: a medal at a multi-sport Games. As a physical education teacher who reached the top of her sport from Tunis and built a second competitive career in France, she is regularly cited at home as a role model, and she has spoken publicly about wanting to see pétanque reach the Olympic program in her career. With African, Mediterranean, world and now World Games titles to her name, she remains the benchmark for women's pétanque in North Africa.