World Cup in Changzhou, China

On the 27th of May the Australian team departed for China for the Diving World Cup. I will be competing in the Women's 3m Synchronised with Sharleen.

The 2010 World Cup was held at Changzhou, China. Changzhou is known as the ‘city of dragons’, it has a population of 3.6 million. Changzhou is located right on the Yangtze River, halfway between Shanghai and Nanjing.

There are 140 divers competing from 26 countries. Those countries are: Austria, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine, USA.

The pool at Changzhou was good, until one of the 3m boards was out of action due to the board not being secure to the concrete base - bit of a worry.

I was very excited to get a photo with Dmitry Sautin, who I think is such an amazing diver, with a phenomenal list of achievements and results.

We are staying at the Warrdo Hotel, which is a 15 minute walk from the pool. I’m on the 8^th floor but every morning I’m woken by the sound of car horns honking at each other – and it doesn’t stop for the entire day!

I was yet again selected to represent Australia in the Opening Ceremony!

Day 1 of competitions was the preliminaries for all four of the synchronised events. The women’s 3m event was held at 4:30pm, there were 11 teams in the competition, and Sharleen and I were number 5 after the Korean pair. We dove well and our synchronisation was also good. We finished the preliminaries in 2^ndplace with 309.81 points. Then we had to wait until Sunday for the final.

Finally Sunday arrived, and I was feeling really nervous. My competition didn’t go so well, I could have done much better reverse dive and back 2.5 pike. Sharleen and I finished in 4^th place, only 3 points off a silver medal and 2 points off a bronze medal.

Sian (our biomechanics) and I were fascinated by all the sleeping Chinese people. So we started taking photos of all the sleeping Chinese people we could find. It was a fun hobby and we got some great photos. Here are a handful of our favourites!

Next I’m off to Perth to compete in the Commonwealth Games trials, where I will be trying to earn myself spots in the 3m event, 3m synchronised event and the 10m synchronised event. Following that I will be heading off to Madrid for the Spanish Grand Prix event along with Ethan, Anabelle, Jaele, Rachael, Olivia and Scott.

Diving Prix in Montreal, Canada

On the 25^th of April I was off to Montreal for the Canada Cup. This will be my fifth time to Montreal and fourth time competing in the Canada Cup. Competition was fierce this year with lots of teams using this event as final selection and preparation for World Cup in China in June. Countries competing included: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Iran, Macau, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Russia, Sweden, USA, and Venezuela.

The second day we were in Montreal, the weather took a turn for the worst and it snowed the whole day - from sun up to sun down. It was truly strange as they are only a few weeks away from summer there. The next day and for the rest of the week the weather was thankfully back to sunshine and blue skies!

We had a few days of training before competition started. On one of those days we visited the headquarters of Cirque du Soleli. It was an awesome place, very fascinating, full of interesting people and all sorts of strange costumes and pieces of equipment. We were given a guided tour all over the HQ, we even met the second in charge of Cirque.

I only had one event at Canada Cup this year, Women’s 3m Synchro with Sharleen. Unfortunately the day before competition I got sick – so I took all sorts of vitamin and used throat gargle, anything to minimise the illness. When I woke up on competition day I felt even worse, feeling like I had no energy at all. Competition was tough, Sharleen and I dove well, except my last dive wasn’t the best. We came 3^rd behind China and Canada, scoring 309.78.

The next day we were off home. It took four painful flights and 30 hours to get back to sunny Brisbane.

Next competition is World Cup in China from June 2^nd to the 6^th.