Diving Grand Prix in Montreal, Canada and Ft. Lauderdale, USA

On the 27th of April I was off to North America to compete in the Canadian and American legs of the FINA Diving Grand Prix. These competitions were crucial to my Australian Olympic selection, which made me nervous and excited.
After three long flights we finally arrived at Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix meet, we had a couple days of training to get familiar with the pool and to get over the jetlag. There were divers from over 15 countries competing in this event, including many Olympic and World Championship medallists.
My first event was on the 3rd of May and it was Women’s 3m Synchronised with Sharleen Stratton. Sharleen and I dove very well to finish in 2nd place and scoring 303.18 points.

The next day Melissa and I competed in the Women’s 10m Synchronised event. We finished 2nd, with a personal best score of 351.96, only 4 points behind the Chinese pair who are ranked number 1 in the world. We beat the Canadian pair who came 2nd at the World Cup in February, it was a great achievement to beat them especially in Canada. Dean Pullar with Mel and me just before medal ceremony.

As my results with Sharleen and Melissa met all selection requirements, Diving Australia will nominate Sharleen and me to the Australia Olympic Committee for Olympic selection in the Women’s 3m Synchronised event, and nominate Melissa and me for Olympic selection in the Women’s 10m Synchronised event.
After the competitions in Montreal we were off to sunny Fort Lauderdale for the American leg of the Grand Prix. The pool in Fort Lauderdale is outdoors, which is lots of fun but always challenging as we never train outdoors, so we never normally have to deal with the windy, rain and sun.
My first event in Fort Lauderdale was on the 9th of May and it was the Women’s 3m Synchronised with Sharleen. We dove good in a tough field to come in 3rd place with a score of 303.96.

The next day was Women’s 10m Synchronised with Melissa, this event was very challenging as it is very windy up on the 10m. We dealt with conditions very well, to finish in 2nd place and scored 325.80 points.

From my four competitions in Canada and America I came home with three silvers and a bronze, which I’m very happy with. Below is the Aussie team at the pool and then done up all nice for the cruise.

The next step in my Olympic selection is for Diving Australia to nominate me to the Australian Olympic Committee, from there the team will be officially announced on the 27th of May!

Olympic Trials

The Olympic Trials were held last week in Hobart from the 11th to the 13th. It was a very stressful, cut throat and drama filled weekend.
Friday morning Sharleen Stratton and I competed in the Women’s 3m Synchronised event. We were the only female pair (we like to think we scared all the other girls away), however we still needed to score over 285 points which we did comfortably, as we scored 314.40 points. Sharleen and I are very proud of our almost 3 year run of being unbeaten in Australia in this event, and holding the Australian record.

Friday afternoon Melissa Wu and I competed in the Women’s 10m Synchronised event. There were two pairs competing for one Olympic spot. The other pair was Chantelle Newbery (Olympic Gold Medallist) and Loudy Wiggins (Olympic Bronze Medallist), so some very tough competition. It was a very nerve racking competition, and the scores were very close. After four out of the five rounds of competition Melissa and I were winning by only 0.21 points. Melissa and I did a great Back 2 ½ somersaults with 1 ½ twists to win the competition by 7.35 points.

On the Saturday I competed in the Women’s 3m event. I felt quite relaxed going into this event as I had already performed well in my two favourite events. I had a very good preliminary competition scoring 342 points which is a personal best score for me. My semi finals and finals weren’t quite as good as my preliminaries, in the end I finished 3rd behind Sharleen and Chantelle. I was very happy with my forwards 3 ½ somersault tuck, I scored 9.5’s and 10’s!
The selection policy for the Australian Diving team for the Olympics is over a number of competitions. The Olympic trials are the second of three competitions, with the final selection competition in Canada and America. So in 10 days the team is off to Montreal and then Fort Lauderdale to compete in the Canadian and American Grand Prix meets. There I need to get a top 5 placing in both my synchronised events to confirm my place on the Olympic team. The team off to Canada and America is Sharleen, Melissa, Chantelle, Alex Croak, Matthew Mitcham, Scott Robertson, Mat Helm, Robert Newbery and me! It should be a great trip!
The Australian Olympic Diving team will be announced on the 27th of May.

World Cup - Beijing China and China Cup - Shenzhen

On the 15th of February I was off to China to dive at the World Cup in Beijing. I was really looking forward to competing in the Water Cube, which is the Beijing Olympic pool. The Australian team included: Mathew Helm, Matthew Mitcham, Chantelle Newbery, Robert Newbery, Scott Robertson, Sharleen Stratton, Loudy Wiggins, Melissa Wu and myself. I was competing in two events, 10m synchronised with Melissa and 3m synchronised with Sharleen.

The Water Cube is an amazing pool. The diving pool is great, so to was the warm up area. The bubbles of the water cube feel like a jumping castle, and at night when they turn the light on it really look spectacular. We had a few days of training before competition started.
My first event was on the 21st of February and it was the Women’s 10m Synchronised with Melissa Wu. In the morning we had preliminaries where 16 pairs of girls were vying for a finals position. Melissa and I dove well to finish in 3rd. A few hours later we were back at the pool and getting ready for the finals with warm up exercise and land somersaults. Our final started at 8:45pm, which is quite late especially as it wouldn’t be unusual for me to be in bed at that time. We also had to deal with the loud fireworks going off outside as it was the last night in the celebrations of Chinese New Year. Melissa and I dove very well in the finals scoring lots of 8’s and 9’s to finish in 3rd place, only a few points off 2nd place Canada. After the medal ceremony we were off to the press conference and finally back at the hotel at 11pm.

On the 24th of February I had the Women’s 3m Synchronised event with Sharleen Stratton. Again preliminaries were in the morning, with 20 pairs of girls competing for final positions. Sharleen and I dove good, but the competition was tough and we were in 5th place. We had a few hours at the hotel then back at the pool for another 8:45pm final. In the final we did four very good dives, and I did one average one, and that was enough to push us back to 8th place. It was a disappointing result but we weren’t too many points from the podium.



We were able to get one day of shopping in at the markets before flying off to Shenzhen for the Chinese Grand Prix meet. Shenzhen is on mainland China, however Hong Kong is a 40 minute drive away.

In Shenzhen I celebrated my 25th birthday on the 28th of February, they organised a cake and sung me Happy Birthday which was very nice. My first competition in Shenzhen was the Women’s 3m Synchro with Sharleen, we both dove very well to finish in 2nd place. I also competed in the Women’s 3m event where I finished in 8th place from 25 girls.

Before flying back to Brisbane, we had a day in Hong Kong so Sharleen and I decided to go to Disneyland! I had a great time, went on the rides and watched some shows, it was a really fun day out.

2008 National Championships

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).

All in all I’m very pleased with my results at National Championship and I’m really looking forward to competing at the World Cup in Beijing in 4 weeks.