Sandrine Poinsot - 2022 European Champion | Player Profile

Sandrine Poinsot - Quick Facts

A European Champion Still Chasing a French Title

Sandrine Poinsot is a French pétanque pointer whose biggest individual breakthrough came on the international stage: the 2022 European Mixed Doublette title, won alongside shooter Mickaël Bonetto. She has stayed near the top of French women's pétanque ever since, adding a 2025 World Games bronze medal and three straight French Championship final appearances with her Var club teammates Anna Maillard and Cindy Peyrot - a trio that has yet to convert any of those finals into a title.

European Gold in S'Hertogenbosch, 2022

Poinsot's first major title came at the 2022 European Championship in S'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, where she partnered Mickaël Bonetto in mixed doublette for a French federation squad rebuilding after a difficult previous international outing. The pair rolled through the competition with a string of lopsided scores - 13-1 over Scotland, 13-0 over Denmark, 13-3 over the host Netherlands, 13-0 over Poland, 13-1 over Lithuania and 13-0 over Slovakia - dropping only a 12-13 group-stage match to Spain. That defeat set up a rematch in the final, where France turned the tables decisively, beating Spain 13-1 to take gold. It was the first European title for both players, with Bonetto's shooting and Poinsot's precision at the point both singled out in contemporary press coverage.

World Games Bronze, 2025

Poinsot represented France in two events at the 2025 World Games in Chengdu, China. In the individual Women's Precision Shooting competition, she reached the semifinal before losing 30-18 to eventual gold medalist Mouna Béji of Tunisia, then fell 28-23 to Thailand's Nantawan Fueangsanit in the bronze-medal match, finishing fourth. She had more success in the Mixed Petanque Classic Doubles, partnering Lucas Desport: after a 2-13 semifinal loss to Thailand, the French pair beat Italy's Alessia Bottero and Andrea Chiapello 13-4 in the third-place match to take bronze.

Three Straight French Finals with Var

By the start of the 2024 season, Poinsot had left her previous club, Arlanc in the Puy-de-Dôme, to join US La Boule Tropézienne in Saint-Tropez, reuniting with national-team teammates Anna Maillard and Cindy Peyrot to form a newly built triplette. The trio has reached the French Women's Triplette Championship final in every season since, without yet winning it: in 2024 at the Boulodrome du Douaisis in Douai, they lost a tight final to a Rumilly (Haute-Savoie) team of Caroline Bourriaud, Céline Lebossé and Alexia Pinto, having clawed back from 3-7 and 5-8 down before Rumilly closed it out. In both 2025 and 2026, at Sin-le-Noble, the Var trio reached the final again but lost both times to a Rhône (CD69) team built around Ludivine d'Isidoro, Mouna Béji and Nadège Baussian-Protat - 13-7 in 2025, and again in a tightly contested 2026 rematch that gave d'Isidoro's trio back-to-back national titles.

2025 World Championship Squad

Poinsot was also part of France's wider women's triplette setup at the 2025 World Championship in Douai, selected alongside Aurélie Bories, Émilie Vignères and Caroline Bourriaud under national coach Ludovic Pereira. France survived a close round-of-16 match against Madagascar before their campaign ended in the quarterfinals with a 13-3 loss to Belgium.

Playing Style

Poinsot plays as a pointer, the role responsible for placing boules close to the cochonnet rather than knocking opponents' boules away - a discipline that contemporary match reports have specifically credited for keeping her teams competitive in tight situations, including the comeback mène that leveled her team's 2024 French final before Rumilly ultimately prevailed.

Legacy

Sandrine Poinsot's career so far pairs a genuine international peak - a European title won without her side ever trailing in the final - with a run of near-misses at the domestic level that has become one of the more notable ongoing rivalries in French women's pétanque. With Anna Maillard and Cindy Peyrot still her regular Var teammates, and a World Games medal added to her résumé in 2025, she remains a fixture of the French national setup heading into future seasons, still chasing the French Championship title that has eluded her trio three years running.