Diving Grand Prix in Rome, Italy - 05

On the 30th of May 2005, Nikki, Gene, Kathryn, Carlie, Brendan (team manager), Xiangning (coach) and I headed off to Rome. We flew to Tokyo via Business class, for some strange unknown reason, but we had a blast. Our flight to Rome was the next day, so we spent a night at the JAL hotel, which was really nice, but no-where near down town Tokyo. I found kimonos in the hotel rooms, so we all got dressed up and then accidently locked out of our room, but doesn't Gene look great in the kimono!!

Finally we arrived in Rome at 5pm on the 31st of June and headed straight to the Hotel Summit, which was on the top a hill as you could imagine. The pool was beautiful, there is a 1m, 3m, 5m, 7.5m and 10m platforms. There was 4 x 1m and 4 x 3m springboards, of which some were good and some were bad.

My first event was 3 metre which was on the 4th of June. There were 24 girls in my event and I was the 14th to go. In my diary I wrote 'well it's about time I pulled together five very solid dives.' Going into semi finals I was in 2nd place, behind Nora from Hungary but in front of Anna Lingberg, Tania Cagnotto and the two Chinese girls with a score of 304 points. It was really scary but a great experience to be last to dive off in a semi final. I didn't drop a dive in the semis but I didn't hit the dives as I did in the morning but stilled scored 273 points. In the end I finished 7th, which I was happy with.

That afternoon we all headed to the Vatican City which was simply amazing. We also got some yummy Italian Gelato and I acquired a pair of fake Channel sunglasses off a dodgy man out the front of the Vatican City, Nikki got a pair of funky sunnies too, check out the photo!

On the 5th of June I had my 1 metre event in the morning and then the 3 metre synchronised event with Carlie in the afternoon. The 1m event had 23 divers, I was 13th and Kat was 14th. I dived quite well doing a good 403B, 105B, 203B and with 303B and 5134D being strong but a little over. I finished 8th with a score of 235 points, which is good for me considering I'm not a great 1 metre diver. Later on that day was 3m synchro, for Carlie and I it was the fourth time we had done synchronised. There were 8 teams in the event and we were team number 6 team after the Chinese duo. We dived really well with a score of over 290 points, and came 3rd behind the Chinese, and Mexicans. It was a very close event with a point seperating 2nd to 4th!

Unfortunately we couldn't attend the medal ceremony as we had to get on the bus to the airport. Once at the airport we grabbed a bite to eat, we all got a nice Italian pizza, cause you can't be in Italy for a week and not eat pizza. After pizza was the medal ceremony, Brendan our team manager presented Carlie and me with our medals at the airport! The medals were very nice, and exciting as it was my first international medal. My goodness the trip to Rome was full on, half of the time was flying and the other half competiting, but all in all a great trip, with lots of positive memories!

Photos above: Carlie and me after just been presented our medals at the airport in Rome. Carlie and Kat eating pizza at the airport! Carlie, Nikki and me at the airport in Tokyo.