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

Bree's Artwork

L: Boîtes d'arc-en-ciel

R: Ameoba


L: Boîtes magenta

R: Rouge Six Raye


L: Boîtes colorées

R: Shattered

L: Pluie Psychedéliqué
R: Soleil Criqué

Graduation

Finally after 4 1/2 years I finished my double degree at Deakin University. So on the 7th of October 2005, I flew down to Melbourne and then jumped in the car with mum and dad for the drive to Geelong for the graduation ceremony. The ceremony started at 5pm, but I needed to be there at 3pm to get fitted in the gown, regalia and hat. I was a bit dissapointed as I only got the green regalia for education and not the blue regalia for the human movement, it would have been nice to have the two.

The ceremony wasn't too long, but it was funny as some of the graduates were guilty of various fashion crimes including jeans and runners, and stockings with sandles!

On Saturday the 8th of October my parents organised a suprise dinner for me! As I walked in to the local pizza place - Como Pizza, there sitting at the table was Ian, Robyn, Elke, Grace, Sian, mum and dad. It was a great dinner and heaps of fun to catch up with everyone.

It was so nice to go to Melbourne for the weekend, even though it was cold. It was really nice to finally see everyone again, as it had been months since I had seen mum, Sian and everyone else. It was also fantastic to get my hands on tow very important and expensive pieces of paper - my degrees!

Asian Diving Championships in Chenzhou, China - 05

On September 8th 2005, Matt, Nikki, Sharleen, Wendy, Mr Wang and myself headed off to Chenzhou, China to compete in the Asian Diving Championships. It was my third time to China but each time it blows my mind with the sheer amount of people and how different the country is to Australia. Once we landed in Guangzhou we had a 5 1/2 hour bus ride to Chenzhou, which was quite unpleasent, but we got to see some Chinese country side. The pool was brand new and quite nice, the springboards were very close together which made synchronised diving a little bit scary.

We stayed at the Chenzhou International Hotel, which was really nice, I was on the trundle bed in a room with Nikki and Sharleen. Everyday in the resturant there was interesting food on offer, this included foods such as: flavoured intestine of goose, bullfrog, ox tail soup, eel, chickens feet and head - yuk!

The opening ceremony was on the 11th of September, there were many performers and dancers, it was really quite incredible. There were musical items, singing, kung fu displays, a crazy high diving show and a group of young synchronised swimmers. Sharleen and I carried the flag for Australia, which was lots of fun. There were 10 countries competing in the Asian Championships which included: China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Korea, Kuwait, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines and Australia.

On Monday the 11th I had the 1 metre event in the morning. I dove quite well to score 250 points which is a personal best, and finished 6th. In the afternoon Sharleen and I had the womens 3 metre synchronised event. Sharleen and I dove extremely well to come 2nd and we scored 296 points which was a personal best and only 6 points behind the Chinese pair!

On the 12th of September I had the women's 3 metre event. I dove pretty good except 107C was over, in the end I scored 502 points. After our event Sharleen and I got our nails done which was lots of fun as neither of us had had acrylic nails before. Later that night was the end of competition banquet, it was heaps of fun. Each country had to perform a song or dance, we got up and did the Vegemite song with actions which was very embarrassing, and I think no-one in the room had any idea of what we were going on about.

On Wednesday the 14th we started our trip home. First we caught a train to Guangzhou which took almost 5 hours, then it was on a bus to the airport and finally we could check our bags in and grab a bite to eat, which ended up being very expensive noodles. We only had two flights with a quick stop off at Singapore. Our plane touched down at 6:30am, it was quite cold but the air was lovely and fresh. China was great fun, it was a shame we couldn't stay longer and see more things.