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.

What Bree has been up to of late!

Well it's been a few months since World Series was over, and it's time for a new post. For the past few weeks I have been writing a blog for Yahoo 7, in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics, here is the link http://au.blogs.yahoo.com/breecole/

The week after we got back for World Series we were off to China (again!) for an AIS training camp in Shenzhen. Shenzhen is on mainland China, but it a short drive from Hong Kong. It was a big group of us travelling to Shenzhen - Hui, Ming, Andrew, Graeme, Scott, Robert, Peter, Chantelle, Loudy, Natasha, Olivia, Melissa, Sharleen and me! The pool and dryland were good, but it was really hot!!

Andrew had a good time, making us do lots of strength - even poking us with his big stick, and making us do ice baths every day! Scott, Melissa and me getting hypothermia!!

We had a day of shopping in Hong Kong, it was hot and crowded, but at least I didn't lose my wallet like I did in April.

Here we are hanging out in Qantas Club in Sydney, enjoying a game of uno, after we missed our flight back to Brisbane.

On October the 25th I flew down to Melbourne for the Victorian Sports Awards. I was nominated for Victorian Female Athlete of the Year. There were seven nominees in the category, then I was announced as one of three finalists along with Penny Taylor - part of the World Champion Opals basketball team and eventual winner, also Katie Maitcer - world class cyclist, so I was in good company, and it was an honour just to be a finalist!

I have had a few competitions lately, first was the Queensland State Championships. I competed in four events: 3rd on 3m, 2nd on 10m and 1st in both synchro events.

Then it was off to Adelaide in late November to compete in the South Australian State Championships. Here I did three events: 2nd on 3m, 2nd on 10m synchro (it was a frustrating competition, but will be great at nationals!) and 1st 3m synchro.

I flew down to Melbourne on Sunday the 23rd of December, so I could have Christmas with the family. It was great to catch up with mum, dad and Sian. We had a great Christmas lunch at a resturant called Citrus in Beaumaris.

While I was down in Melbourne I decided it was time to cash in my 5 cent coin collection. Over the past 9 years I have collected and received donations of 5 cent coins. I had to put them in $5 bags, which took quite a while as I had $160 in 5 cent coins, which was 3200 coins, which weighed 10 kilograms!!

FINA Diving World Series - 3rd Leg - Nanjing, China

We left Mexico very early on the 9th of September, we flew to San Francisco and arrived at 10am. Our flight to Shanghai was delayed a few hours, so we caught the train to downtown San Francisco. We walked around for a few hours, checking out some of the local sights, it was a really fun day out, much better than sitting in the airport.

Finally our flight to Shanghai was boarded, and for some unknown reason the four of us were upgraded to business class. It was awesome, I could lie almost flat and I had prawns for dinner! We arrived in Shanghai, and then were taken by bus to Nanjing which took 5 hours. We arrived at the Jiangsu Zixin International Hotel at 1am. The hotel was very nice, I shared a room with Sharleen up on the 21st floor. The food in the hotel was pretty average, I ate lots of fried rice, bok choy and watermelon.

The pool at Nanjing was fantastic, one of the best pools I have ever dived at. The pool was almost brand new and it was clean! The springboards were good and the platform was nice too, I'm getting use to the bamboo matting platform surface. The first photo is of the pool from the lift in the hotel. The fourth photo is of Melissa doing a back twist off 5m, while I was standing on 10m platform. Dad took some fast speed photos of Sharleen and I doing synchro, the three photos are of the same dive.

We went shopping a few times in Nanjing, at the markets we bought DVD's, wallets, belts and some Chinese souvenirs. We also went to the supermarket to stock up on some food, I bought some lollies and biscuits.

On the 15th of September, Sharleen and I had 3m synchro. Sharleen and I dove really well, didn't miss a dive. The Chinese and Russian pairs also dove really well and didn't miss a dive either. We came 3rd behind the Chinese and Russian pairs, but we score 317 points which is an international PB score for us! We were awarded with a beautiful glass trophy.

On the 16th of September, Melissa and I had 10m synchro. Our first three dives - inward dive, reverse dive and front 3.5 were excellent and we were actually in the lead. Next dive was inward 3.5, I was a tad short but Melissa was way over. Our final dive was back twist, we nailed it, to finish with 340 points and in 2nd place, just 12 points behind the Chinese!

That night was the farewell dinner, which included traditional Chinese entertainment of musical performances, dancing and singing. Sharleen and I got into the Chinese spirit and ate cake with chopsticks! The Australian Team (L-R) : me, Sharleen, Melissa and Xiangning.

On the 17th of September we had another early start at 5am, getting a bus to the Nanjing train station, and then caught the bullet train to Shanghai train station, which took only 2 hours! Then it was an hour bus ride to the Shanghai Airport, where I said goodbye to dad, as he was on his way home to Melbourne. We flew to Singapore and then to Brisbane. I was so excited about being back to Australia - good food and clean air!
It was a great trip, very long and very tiring, but I learnt a lot and produced some great results too. We got two silver medals and two bronze, which resulted in us getting third place overall in both the synchro events!

FINA Diving World Series - 2nd Leg - Mexico City, Mexico

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 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!