On the 29th of April the Australian Diving Team was off to North America, the first stop was Montreal. The team included: Sharleen, Melissa, Nikki, Peter, Scott, Rodger and me. Support staff included: Hui, Xiangning, Dr Song and Lisa Barrow as team manager. The Canada Cup was held at the 1976 Olympic Pool, which is in Olympic Park, which has lots of the other stadiums and halls they used for the Olympics. The pool is part of Olympic Tower which is the worlds tallest inclined building at 30 degrees of incline!
The diving pool itself was pretty good, the 5m and 10m platforms were new and they were nice and wide. The 3m springboards weren't too bad, but there were only two boards.
The diving pool itself was pretty good, the 5m and 10m platforms were new and they were nice and wide. The 3m springboards weren't too bad, but there were only two boards.
We stayed at the Auberge Royal Versailles Hotel, it was quite nice but the food was average. We caught the Metro to and from the hotel, between stations Radisson and Viau, which was only four stops. It was pretty cold in Canada, on average 12 degrees during the day, and very cold at night.
My first event was the Womens 3m on the 3rd of May. After prelims I was 7th out of 24. Next was semi-finals, I didn't dive very well and in the end I finished 10th.
On the 5th, Melissa and I had Womens 10m Synchro. We just didn't have a great day, our synchro wasn't as good as normal and our individual dives weren't fantastic. We ended up 4th which was really disappointing for us both. China won, then Meghan and Roseline from Canada in 2nd, and Mary Beth and Hayley from America in 3rd.
On the 5th, Melissa and I had Womens 10m Synchro. We just didn't have a great day, our synchro wasn't as good as normal and our individual dives weren't fantastic. We ended up 4th which was really disappointing for us both. China won, then Meghan and Roseline from Canada in 2nd, and Mary Beth and Hayley from America in 3rd.
On the 6th, Sharleen and I had Womens 3m Synchro. We were pair 1, out of 8 teams. Our first two dives were good. I did an average back twist, Sharleen did an average back 2.5, and our synchro score were only 7 and 7.5's. Our full out was good, but we thought we were out of the medals so we went off to have a shower. That was until a lady told us to hurry up and marshal for our medal, we didn't believe her until we saw the scores. China won, then the Canadian pair and us only a few points behind.
The next stop on the North American tour was Ft. Lauderdale in sunny Florida! We stayed at the Sheraton Yankee Clipper, which was 1/2 a mile from the pool and right on the beach!
We competed at the Hall of Fame Pool with is a block from the beach. I was not really looking forward to diving 10m here cause it gets quite windy in the afternoons.
On the 11/5 I had Womens 3m in the morning, there were 26 girls in the event. My inward, front and front twist were pretty good, but my back and reverse were both short, so I didn't make semi-finals, which is disappointing. That evening at 6:45pm, Sharleen and I had Womens 3m Synchro. We both dove better than we did in Canada, Hui was happy this time! We came 3rd, behind the Russians - Yulia and Anastasia, who dove beautifully, in 2nd place was the Chinese - Li Ting and He Zi. So we got another funky glass trophy to join the one we got last year.
On the 11/5 I had Womens 3m in the morning, there were 26 girls in the event. My inward, front and front twist were pretty good, but my back and reverse were both short, so I didn't make semi-finals, which is disappointing. That evening at 6:45pm, Sharleen and I had Womens 3m Synchro. We both dove better than we did in Canada, Hui was happy this time! We came 3rd, behind the Russians - Yulia and Anastasia, who dove beautifully, in 2nd place was the Chinese - Li Ting and He Zi. So we got another funky glass trophy to join the one we got last year.
On the 12/5, Melissa and I had Womens 10m Synchro. Our event got underway at 3pm, just as the wind was really picking up! In 14 years of diving these were the worse diving conditions I have ever dived in, plus it was synchro so that made it even harder. We dove quite well, our synchro was a bit out, so our synchro scores were averaging 7.5's. It was so windy for inward and back twist that we had to stand down and wait until it was less windy. In the end we came 2nd, again behind the Chinese - Chen Roulin and Wang Xin. In 3rd place were the Canadian girls - Meghan and Roseline. So that was another heavy glass trophy to take home!
At the Sheraton, there were a few pools, one of pools had under water windows that can be seen from the Sheraton bar. I got Scotty to take a photo of Sharleen and me! This bar was where they shot a few scenes from the movie Anaylze This.
On the last night we had a cruise in a big yacht called Caprice, we cruised around the Ft Lauderdale area for a few hours. We had dinner on the yatch and just hung out with all the divers. It was lots of fun and I took heaps of photos. After the cruise lots of the divers headed down to the beach near the hotel, thats was heaps of fun too.
The third and unexpected stop in the tour of North America was a stop in Houston Texas. Our American Airlines plane from Ft. Lauderdale to LA was a dodgy one, so we had to stop and refuel in Houston. It added an extra 2 hours to our already 5 hour long flight, plus we had to stay on the plane and wait.
It was a good trip to Canada and USA, we had a week of winter, then a week of summer. My synchro results were pretty good, but my individual results need to improve.
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