Spaniard Luis Enrique, coach of the French team Paris Saint-Germain, expressed his happiness with the level his team performed during the great victory (6-1) over Slovan Bratislava in Slovakia in the opening of its Champions League campaign.
Enrique said in statements, reported by Saint-Germain's official website: “I am happy with almost everything. The atmosphere at Parc des Princes in the Champions League is always special, and the fans were great. I was very impressed with the strong level with which we started the match, especially the intense pressure without the ball. “It is very difficult to stop this team, and I am very happy with the result.”
He added that the only goal his team received was the only negative aspect of the match, stressing that the team proved once again that it belongs in this competition and wants to continue this journey.
For his part, Ousmane Dembélé stressed the importance of achieving victory and scoring a large number of goals at the beginning of the team’s journey in the tournament, praising the team’s collective performance in attack and defense, and the popular atmosphere in the Parc des Princes stadium.
Dembele said: “It was very important that we win, and we scored a lot of goals, and it was important that we make a good start in the Champions League. It was a great performance and we had a lot of fun, as we attacked and defended as one team. “The atmosphere in the Parc des Princes is unbelievable, and with fans like these things are truly exceptional.”
Ferran Torres, who scored three goals, described his first participation with Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League as being like a dream, expressing his great happiness with the reception he received since joining the club.
“It was an incredible night, like a dream,” Torres said. It was my first match with Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, we won and I scored three goals. Seeing these passionate fans made me wish this day would never end. I am very happy with the reception I received at the club, and how everyone made me feel at home. “I have adapted faster than I expected, and I hope to continue delighting the fans.”
Sweden's Armand "Mondo" Duplantis tops the list of stars in the gathering of the world's best ranked athletes participating in the "Ultimate Championship", in its first edition in Budapest over the weekend.
Starting Friday, about 381 athletes from 65 federations will gather for three evenings of competitions at the Sivotsky Dgyula Stadium, which hosted the 2023 World Championships, where they will compete for record prize money totaling $10 million.
Among the direct qualifiers for this final tournament of the season are 26 Olympic champions in Paris 2024, 26 world champions from last year’s Tokyo edition, and 25 winners of the Diamond League for the 2026 season, in addition to the best competitors of the year based on the qualification system through the global rankings.
There are no quotas allocated to countries, as qualification depends exclusively on performance.
British IAAF President Sebastian Coe said: “We created the Ultimate Championship to ensure that every athletics season concludes with a major world championship, a championship with real meaning for athletes, fans, media and broadcasters,” noting that the year 2026 will witness neither a world championship nor an Olympics.
He added: “Our primary goal is to enhance our global audience through broadcasting, so it was designed without hesitation for television to engage broadcasters in a new way, helping to highlight national heroes more.”
On the track, the semi-finals in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m hurdles, 100m/110m hurdles, and 400m hurdles will include 8 runners each, with the top four in each semi-final qualifying to the final. The 1500m, 5000m and relay races will be direct finals.
All field events will be live finals, with the exception of no place for the women's shot put, discus throw and hammer throw.
The competitions will include the long jump competition, with a notable absence of the men's triple jump, and the throws will be in four rounds, with two attempts guaranteed for each of the eight competitors.
Each champion and heroine in the “Absolute Championship” competition will receive a grand prize of $150,000, an amount that the International Federation described as a game-changer in a sport that is often considered underfunded.
But each athlete will receive a financial prize: for example, the eighth-place finisher in an individual competition will receive $10,000.
“We have a $10 million prize fund where every athlete who participates takes home something (prize money),” Coe said of the 28 events presented in a fast-paced, made-for-TV format.
World and Olympic pole vault champion Duplantis, who improved his world record to 6.31m earlier this year, will face a group that includes Greece's Emanuel Karalis, who has cleared 6.20m this season and arrives in Budapest as the Diamond League champion.
Duplantis withdrew from the Diamond League finals in Brussels as a precaution because he felt a strain in his leg, raising questions about his physical fitness ahead of the event in Hungary.
A number of other world record breakers will also participate this season: American Jacoby Tharp in the 110m hurdles, compatriot Masai Russell in the 100m hurdles, and Brazilian Alison dos Santos in the 400m hurdles.
Other participating Olympic champions include American Gabby Thomas, Dominican Marilidi Paulino, Britain's Kelly Hodgkinson, Ukrainian Yaroslava Mahuchek, Botswana's Letsili Tebogo, and Canadian Ethan Katzberg.
World champions: American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, Jamaican Oobleck Civil and Botswana's Colin Kebenachebe are also among the competitors.
The middle-distance program is particularly attractive, as it includes the world-leading women's 800m; Swiss Audrey Ferro, Olympic champion Kelly Hodgkinson, and Dutch Femke Broders-Bull.
On the other hand, American Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles will be absent due to injury, and his compatriot, Olympic and world long jump champion Tara Davis-Woodhall, who suffered a concussion following a car accident last week.
Ko said: “We want to offer our fans athletics that they have never seen before, with the best athletes in this sport to compete face to face in a sports festival full of passion and enthusiasm, with sound, light and innovation.”
He added to Agence France-Presse: “This is the sacred goal of all sports. How do you reach all audiences in a way that they are familiar with?
For his part, Duplantis said that the tournament will be “the absolute pinnacle in a year in which there are no world championships and no Olympics.”
He added: “Even with a smaller number of competitions, 26 individual competitions will be held over just three evenings. "The pace will be crazy."
The Spanish coach of the English club Arsenal, runner-up last season, Mikel Arteta praised the Norwegian international “Gunners” captain Martin Odegaard, who scored the winning goal over the Italian host Napoli 1-0 on Wednesday in the first round of the European Champions League football competition.
Odegaard scored the winning goal at Diego Armando Maradona Stadium with a missile shot in the 75th minute, on a night during which Arsenal scored 26 shots, a record for the club away from home in the competition. Odegaard started the 2026-2027 season in an amazing way, scoring 4 goals in 5 matches, including two consecutive winning goals against Chelsea (2-1) and Napoli.
This represents a noticeable shift in the Arsenal captain’s offensive performance, after he only scored one goal in 36 matches in all competitions last season. Arteta said about the increase in the effectiveness of the attacking midfielder in front of goal: “First and foremost, he must be available to participate, and he missed many matches last season due to injuries. He has that intensity, and he has different relationships around him as well, and that helps him.”
He added: “Now he can be in different positions within the team. Especially in the offensive phase. “When we put him in those positions, he is a very dangerous player.” He continued: “What we need are players who have this mentality capable of deciding a match. To play with this character, so that if one attempt does not succeed, they continue to try the next and the next, and to continue to take advantage of opportunities and take risks.”
He added: “He has been reaching these positions more in recent matches, and you feel that he is in a state of mind that makes him believe that the ball can enter the net, and he scored a wonderful goal tonight.” Arsenal started the season strong, winning all three of its matches in the English Premier League after sweeping Manchester City in the Community Shield last month. Arteta said: “(I am) very happy,” considering that the result does not reflect the quality of his team’s performance in Naples.
He added: “The way we started the match from the first minute, how we competed, and the clarity we had in how to attack them to get them out of their organization, the goal, and the quality. In addition to the large number of opportunities we created.” He continued: “Certainly the result should have reflected a completely different difference. We will get there, because if we had been more precise the win would have been much greater. But doing what we did today on this field and in front of this competitor is remarkable for the team.”
As for Napoli, the defeat represented a new setback for new coach Massimiliano Allegri, after his team suffered its third loss in a row in all competitions following its two league defeats against Como and Inter.
The injuries to key players, Scot Scott McTominay and Cameroonian Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa, increased the complications in Allegri's task, as he aims to score three points in the next league match on Sunday.
Allegri said: “In order to get back on the right path, we need a strong victory over Bologna, and this will not be easy. “There is definitely a feeling of bitterness and disappointment, as we are coming from three defeats.”
He added: “I liked the performance from a technical standpoint, but we lacked physical energy in the second half, and (Scottish) Billy Gilmour and (Belgian) Kevin De Bruyne were playing their first matches.” He continued: “We must remain calm and balanced. If we had defended some periods of the match as we did in the second half tonight, perhaps we would not have lost to Como and Inter.”
