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Aston Villa Enjoying Dream Start to 1st Champions League Campaign

Aston Villa Enjoying Dream Start to 1st Champions League Campaign
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Aston Villa Enjoying Dream Start to 1st Champions League Campaign

Aston Villa Enjoying Dream Start to 1st Champions League Campaign

Three straight wins, no goals conceded and top of the league on maximum points. Aston Villa’s first ever appearance in the Champions League couldn’t be going any better, The Associated Press reported.
Villa’s 2-0 home win over Bologna on Tuesday maintained the 100% start to the English team’s first campaign in Europe’s top club competition since 1983 — when it was called the European Cup, which Villa won in 1982.
“What we are building here is amazing,” said Villa captain John McGinn, one of the scorers against Bologna at a rocking Villa Park.
Villa opened with a 3-0 win at Swiss outsider Young Boys and then beat German giant Bayern Munich 1-0 in its first home game of the revamped competition.
Halfway through the third round of league games, Villa is in first place and no other team has nine points.
“We are playing seriously, we are playing focused, responsible and the team is progressing and mature in everything,” said Villa manager Unai Emery, who took charge two years ago with the team just above the relegation zone.
Key this season has been the form of Jhon Duran, the 20-year-old Colombia international who is enjoying his breakthrough year at Villa.
Duran was handed a rare start against Bologna ahead of first-choice striker Ollie Watkins and was about to be replaced by his fellow center forward when he hooked home a volley in the 64th minute from Morgan Rogers’ cross.
Watkins was on the sideline waiting to come on and was seen applauding the goal by Duran, who now has seven for the season in 12 games — mostly as a substitute. One of them was a memorable long-range winner against Bayern.
“When he was watching that I was thinking of changing him, he accelerated and scored a goal,” Emery said, laughing. “It was fantastic. He was asking for more (time) because he was thinking he could score more goals.”
Duran was not amused at immediately being taken off after his goal. He angrily punched a seat in the dugout and then headed down the tunnel soon after. But he came back at the end of the match to join in with his team's celebrations.

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Tunisian Freediver Eyes Records and Developing the Sport

Walid Boudhiaf, Franco-Tunisian freediving world champion, stands near fishing boats before a training session at the Carthage Punic Ports near Tunis on October 17, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
Walid Boudhiaf, Franco-Tunisian freediving world champion, stands near fishing boats before a training session at the Carthage Punic Ports near Tunis on October 17, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
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Tunisian Freediver Eyes Records and Developing the Sport

Walid Boudhiaf, Franco-Tunisian freediving world champion, stands near fishing boats before a training session at the Carthage Punic Ports near Tunis on October 17, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
Walid Boudhiaf, Franco-Tunisian freediving world champion, stands near fishing boats before a training session at the Carthage Punic Ports near Tunis on October 17, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

Tunisian freediver Walid Boudhiaf, the Arab world's only international champion in the sport and a one-time world record holder at 150 meters, is eyeing new achievements and hopes to expand the sport in his home country, where "thousands practice it without even realizing.”

During a recent visit to Tunisia, the 46-year-old, who spends half the year in Colombia and the other half training in the Bahamas, shared his remarkable journey with AFP.

Though he grew up in Tunisia, where he spent most of his summers by the sea, Boudhiaf didn't discover freediving until later.

His father, a Tunisian university professor, and French doctor mother were both "sea lovers" and taught him to swim at the age of three, later introducing him to spearfishing.

By his mid-20s, freediving came to him a continent away and nowhere near the sea -- "by chance in a pool in Bogota,” the Colombian capital that sits over a thousand kilometers from the Pacific Ocean.

Boudhiaf initially took up underwater rugby, which, he said, proved "not aggressive enough.”

His coach had then noticed his ability to control his breath, which years later would help him achieve a personal record of seven minutes 38 seconds.

Boudhiaf said living in Bogota at 2,600 meters above sea level has also helped develop "excellent cardiovascular conditions" by stimulating red blood cell production due to the low oxygen levels.

He then began training up to six hours a day, he said, while balancing a job as a computer engineer.

"I stopped going out," he recalls. "All I did was train."

- World record -

Boudhiaf entered his first competition in Marseille in 2007, but it wasn't until 2012 that he was able to fully dedicate himself to freediving, following a "last job in the Canary Islands, where I went to be closer to the sea.”

Today, thanks to sponsorship from Tunisian companies, he can finally make a living from his passion and also organizes workshops and conferences based around the sport.

In Egypt in 2021, he gained international renown when he set a world record at 150 meters in the variable weight category, which requires using a pulling rope on the way down and fins to go back up.

He said he was inspired by Luc Besson's 1988 film "The Big Blue" that put freediving on the map, and the achievements of legendary diver Umberto Pelizzari.

"It was a dream that I had since I watched 'The Big Blue' and saw Umberto Pelizzari's records," he said. "One hundred fifty meters is a symbolic frontier, a testament to human potential."

Boudhiaf was also crowned world champion in 2022, diving to 116 meters in free immersion apnea timed at three minutes 54 seconds.

After collecting several medals at the Deep Blue competition in Dominica this past April -- one gold, two silver, and one bronze -- he has been training for the 2025 Vertical Blue, an elite freediving competition held in the Bahamas, which he calls "the Wimbledon of freediving".

He is hoping to beat the constant weight record of 136 meters, currently held by Russia's Alexey Molchanov, who broke Boudhiaf's variable weight record with a depth of 156 meters in March 2023.

- 'Everyone can do it' -

Beyond competing and pursuing records, which "have ups and downs and challenges to maintaining peak performance", another focus of Boudhiaf's is growing the sport in Tunisia.

"Many Tunisians are already practicing it without knowing it, through amateur spearfishing, which is a form of freediving," he said, referring to Tunisia's long-standing traditions of sponge diving and coral collecting.

Additionally, interest in pool-based freediving is growing, he added, especially at the Rades Olympic Complex near Tunis.

"I'm motivated to provide more support," Boudhiaf said, adding that the sport required little resources and equipment and that it "isn't a sport for the wealthy".

While Egypt, Greece or Türkiye are better for competition-oriented training with "very deep spots close to the shore" in the Mediterranean, according to Boudhiaf, Tunisia is still suitable for "recreational freediving”

"You don't need to dive 100 meters," he said. "At 20, 30, or 50 meters, beginners can improve and even reach an advanced level."

Freediving is also "the most natural way to observe and interact with marine life," he added.

Breathing techniques also promote good health, he said, because the exercises can help manage stress.