On Monday the 3rd of September, we left Sheffield on the bus to Manchester, then flew to London Heathrow, to Washington DC, and finally onto Mexico City. As the second leg of the World Diving Series was held in Mexico City. We arrived at the Radisson Hotel at 11pm, this time I shared a room with Melissa. The Radisson in Mexico City is 5 stars, it was very nice and the food was pretty good too, though we didn't eat any Mexican food, which was disappointing.We competed at the Alberca Olímpica Francisco Márquez Pool which was built 40 years ago for the 1968 Olympic Games. It hasn't had much work done on it since then!
The altitude in Mexico City is 2240 metres, and you could really feel it while climbing the stairs to 10m, I would get to the top puffing and panting! Mexico City was so busy, lots of people, cars and traffic jams. The population of Mexico City is higher than the entire population of Australia, over 25 million people!!
On the 5th of September, all the divers and coaches were invited to go on a bus tour of Mexico City. It went for 2 hours, but it was heaps of fun as we got to sit on an open top double decker bus. We drove past heaps of significant buildings and statues, such as the Mexico City Cathedral (far below right), National Palace, the Palace of Fine Arts (below right) and the Angel of Independence (far below centre).
On the 5th of September, all the divers and coaches were invited to go on a bus tour of Mexico City. It went for 2 hours, but it was heaps of fun as we got to sit on an open top double decker bus. We drove past heaps of significant buildings and statues, such as the Mexico City Cathedral (far below right), National Palace, the Palace of Fine Arts (below right) and the Angel of Independence (far below centre).
On the 7th of September, we had nothing to do in the morning and we were bored. So Sharleen, Mel, dad and me got in a taxi and drove back to the Mexico City Square to have a look around. We went to the markets, looked at some Aztec ruins and looked in Mexico City Cathedral (left) and the National Palace (centre). It was great to get out of the hotel and enjoy some Mexican culture. Below is dad and me in the courtyard of the Mexican National Palace, and us girls at the markets.
That afternoon Sharleen and I had 3m synchro. The crowd was huge and very vocal! We dove really well and had very good synchro, even on back 2.5, we were synchro over and synchro splashy! We came second behind the Chinese and in front of the Russian pair. We were awarded with beautiful and big medals, then it was off to do a TV interview with Fernando Platas, then to the press conference which took a while and most questions were asked in Spanish then an interpreter said the question in English, which was then translated into Chinese, then back to English and finally Spanish.
On the 8th of September, Melissa and I were final event with the 10m synchro. We had a lot of sitting around time, before our event got underway. Our inward and reverse dives were pretty good, and then on front and inward I went over. It was very close between 3rd and 6th going into the last round, we had back twist, usually a very good dive for us. Mine felt really good but Mel's was short and the synchro was out. So we finished 6th, which was disappointing, neither of us dove great.
That night was the farewell dinner, we were all so tired, and food didn’t start until 9:45pm, the food was delicious but I just wanted to go to bed. Finally I got back to my room at 11:30pm, with my alarm set for 3:18am - Yuk!
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