This year National Championshisp were held in Adelaide between the 11th and 13th of January. The AIS team flew down to Adelaide on Tuesday for a few days of training before competition started.
Friday the 11th was my busy synchronised diving day. My first event was the Women’s 3m Synchronised event, with Sharleen. We both dove well to score 301.38 points, which was 35 points clear of 2nd place. We were happy with our performance; however there is still room for improvement, as we were 20 points off our personal best score.
After the medal ceremony I raced off to the change rooms to change into my 10m synchro bathers and then raced up to the 10m platform to warm up for my 10m synchronised event with Melissa. We both dove very well to win the gold medal over Olympic medallists Chantelle Newbery and Loudy Wiggins. Melissa and I scored many 9.5s and 10s, with a total score of 341.40 points, which was 15 points clear of Newbery and Wiggins. We were both very pleased with how we dove in the high pressure event against such tough competition. Two gold medals in 90 minutes, one on a springboard and one on a 10m platform, with two different synchro partners, I felt was a pretty good effort!
On Saturday the 12th I competed in the Women’s 3m Springboard event. I wasn’t too concerned with placings in this event; my focus was on achieving scores that would see me on the Shadow Olympic Squad. I was very pleased with my prelims, scoring 323.45, semis weren't as good but not too bad with 299.40. In finals I scored 320.35, which was good consdiering I did a very aveage reverse. I was happy as I dove consistently well with only one bad dive out of 15 dives, and achieving the points required for Shadow Olympic Squad. Sharleen Stratton won the event, Chantelle Newbery finished in 2nd place and I wasn’t too far behind in 3rd place.
Sunday night at the Diving banquet, awards and teams were announced. I was awarded 2007/2008 Female Diver of the Year, which was a great honour.
I was also selected on the Australian team to compete at World Cup next month in Beijing at the newly completed Water Cube. I will compete in the Women’s 3m synchro and the Women’s 10m synchro events. Other team members include: Melissa Wu, Sharleen Stratton, Loudy Wiggins, Chantelle Newbery, Robert Newbery, Matthew Mitcham, Mathew Helm and Scott Robertson. I was also announced as a member of the Olympic Shadow squad (Olympic Shadow Squad team below).
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