2006 National Championships and Southern Cross Grand Prix

On the 1st of February 2006, I headed down to Melbourne with the other AIS divers and coaches. We stayed in really nice self contained apartments in Southbank, Melissa, Sharleen and I were in an apartment together. For the next three days we had training twice day, in the morning and afternoon. On the 2nd, Gene hit his head on the 10m platform doing synchro 407C with Matt Mitchum, he concussed himself and had a nasty gash on his head that required 16 stitches, and a night in hospital for observations.

The first day of competition was Sunday the 5th, Sharleen and I had 3m synchro. There were five teams in the event and we were number five. We dove very well and won with a score of 321.21, which is an Australia record! Then we had a few interviews and heaps of photos taken, it was heaps of fun and very exciting.

The next day in the Herald Sun there was a full page photo of Sharleen and I, but the article with the photo was mostly about Gene hitting his head on the platform, and attempting to dive in the men's 1m event yesterday.

On Tuesday the 7th, the women had 1m. In the prelims I stuffed 105B and my 303B was over, I was 10th which isn't very good at all. In finals I dove much better to score 260.65, and move up to 3rd placed Australian.

The next day was the women's 3m event, I was so nervous going into the competition. In prelims I stuffed up 205B and 107C, and then unbelievably I made the same mistakes in the final, which was really disappointing. I ended up being 4th placed Australian, behind Chantelle, Sharleen and Kathryn. However that meant I would be competing in the Southern Cross Grand Prix event in Sydney, leaving the next day.

The next day we headed off to the airport for Sydney. Again we had three days of training before comps got under way. My first event was on the 14th and it was the women's 3m event. I was nervous but not as bad as the week before, my goal heading into the event was to score over 290 points, in order to make National team. Everything was going really well until my last dive 305B, where I just didn't get the dive moving quick enough so it ended up going in short. However I ended up scoring 292 points, which was a huge relief as that meant I would be on the National Squad!!

On the 15th Sharleen and I had 3m synchro. There were only three teams in the competition - China, Macau and us. We dove really well to score 310.98 (our second highest score), the Chinese girls Guo Jing Jing and Li Ting beat us by 36 points, which isn't too bad considering they are the current world champions.

That night was the Diving Australia dinner, which was a four hour cruise around Sydney harbour. It was lots of fun but quite a long trip. After dinner and desert, prize money was awarded, there was also a presentation for the divers selected in the Commonwealth Games team, we were all given a decorative bowl, which is quite nice. We were also told which grand prix events we would be attending this year. I will be heading to Zhuhai, China in April and then off to Ft Lauderdale, USA in May - which I am very excited about!!

The photo's above were taken by Stuart Mcevoy and are available for purchase at www.newsphotos.com.au