The pool looked fantastic! Heaps of seating and lots of blue and pink. Training was very crowded most of the time, but it was great catching up with the other divers from all over the world. We stayed at Oaks on Market St, the accommodation was good. I got the welcome board changed from 'Oaks Welcomes Athletes for the World Swimming Championships' to '12th FINA World Championships' - much better!
My first event was Women's 10m Synchro with Melissa. After prelims in the morning we were 2nd, in the finals we dove really well to finish in 2nd place. The Chinese girls: Jia Tong and Chen Ruolin won with 361.32 points. Melissa and I came 2nd, with a score of 324.00 points. The girls from Germany: Annett Gamm and Nora Subschincki finished in 3rd with 306.63 points.
My next event was the Women's 3m Springboard, there was 40 girls in the event. At the preliminaries I didn't dive very well, and I scraped through to semi finals, which is top 18. I dove much better in the semi finals to move up to 10th place and into the finals. I dove pretty good in the finals except for my front 3.5 tuck, which was way over, so in the end I came 12th (again - like World Champs in 2005). The crowd were great, really supportive, hence the wave to the crowd after my final dive in the finals.
My final event was the Women's 3m Synchronised event. The Chinese girls: Wu Minxia and Guo Jingjing won the event with 355.80 points. In 2nd place was the German girls: Ditte Kotzian and Heike Fisher with 318.45 points. Sharleen and I won the bronze medal with 313.14 points.
I had a great time at World Championships! I had three goals going in to the meet: the medal in both of my synchro events and to final in my 3m event. To finish the biggest event of the year (and the biggest event before the Olympics), having achieved all my goals is a great feeling, and puts me in great stead for the rest of the year, heading in to 2008! And now the Olympics are less than 500 days away!
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