Tunisian freediver Walid Boudhiaf, the Arab world’s solely worldwide champion within the sport and a one-time world report holder at 150 metres, is eyeing new achievements and hopes to increase the game in his residence nation, the place “hundreds practise it with out even realising”.
Throughout a latest go to to Tunisia, the 46-year-old, who spends half the yr in Colombia and the opposite half coaching within the Bahamas, shared his exceptional journey with AFP.
Although he grew up in Tunisia, the place he spent most of his summers by the ocean, Boudhiaf did not uncover freediving till later.
His father, a Tunisian college professor, and French physician mom have been each “sea lovers” and taught him to swim on the age of three, later introducing him to spearfishing.
By his mid-20s, freediving got here to him a continent away and nowhere close to the ocean — “by likelihood in a pool in Bogota”, the Colombian capital that sits over a thousand kilometres (620 miles) from the Pacific Ocean.
Boudhiaf initially took up underwater rugby, which, he mentioned, proved “not aggressive sufficient”.
His coach had then observed his potential to regulate his breath, which years later would assist him obtain a private report of seven minutes 38 seconds.
Boudhiaf mentioned dwelling in Bogota at 2,600 metres above sea degree has additionally helped develop “glorious cardiovascular situations” by stimulating crimson blood cell manufacturing because of the low oxygen ranges.
He then started coaching as much as six hours a day, he mentioned, whereas balancing a job as a pc engineer.
“I ended going out,” he recollects. “All I did was practice.”
– World report –
Boudhiaf entered his first competitors in Marseille in 2007, nevertheless it wasn’t till 2012 that he was capable of absolutely dedicate himself to freediving, following a “final job within the Canary Islands, the place I went to be nearer to the ocean”.
At the moment, because of sponsorship from Tunisian firms, he can lastly make a dwelling from his ardour and in addition organises workshops and conferences primarily based across the sport.
In Egypt in 2021, he gained worldwide renown when he set a world report at 150 metres within the variable weight class, which requires utilizing a pulling rope on the way in which down and fins to return up.
He mentioned he was impressed by Luc Besson’s 1988 movie “The Large 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 Large Blue’ and noticed Umberto Pelizzari’s information,” he mentioned. “100 fifty metres is a symbolic frontier, a testomony to human potential.”
Boudhiaf was additionally topped world champion in 2022, diving to 116 metres in free immersion apnea timed at three minutes 54 seconds.
After amassing a number of medals on the Deep Blue competitors in Dominica this previous April — one gold, two silver, and one bronze — he has been coaching for the 2025 Vertical Blue, an elite freediving competitors held within the Bahamas, which he calls “the Wimbledon of freediving”.
He’s hoping to beat the fixed weight report of 136 metres, at the moment held by Russia’s Alexey Molchanov, who broke Boudhiaf’s variable weight report with a depth of 156 metres in March 2023.
– ‘Everybody can do it’ –
Past competing and pursuing information, which “have ups and downs and challenges to sustaining peak efficiency”, one other focus of Boudhiaf’s is rising the game in Tunisia.
“Many Tunisians are already practising it with out realizing it, by way of newbie spearfishing, which is a type of freediving,” he mentioned, referring to Tunisia’s long-standing traditions of sponge diving and coral amassing.
Moreover, curiosity in pool-based freediving is rising, he added, particularly on the Rades Olympic Complicated close to Tunis.
“I am motivated to offer extra help,” Boudhiaf mentioned, including that the game required little sources and tools and that it “is not a sport for the rich”.
Whereas Egypt, Greece or Turkey are higher for competition-oriented coaching with “very deep spots near the shore” within the Mediterranean, in keeping with Boudhiaf, Tunisia continues to be appropriate for “leisure freediving”.
“You needn’t dive 100 metres,” he mentioned. “At 20, 30, or 50 metres, novices can enhance and even attain a complicated degree.”
Freediving can also be “essentially the most pure approach to observe and work together with marine life,” he added.
Respiration methods additionally promote good well being, he mentioned, as a result of the workout routines may also help handle stress.
