FINA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Days One-Three

Greetings from Down Under! Those of us who came over in the first group have been in Melbourne for three days now and we're getting settled in and adjusted to the time change (We're 15 hours ahead of Eastern time and 18 hours ahead of Pacific time).

The first group to arrive included divers competing the first two days of the World Championships– Chris Colwill, Troy Dumais, Mary Beth Dunnichay, Haley Ishimatsu, Mitch Richeson, Jevon Tarantino and Laura Wilkinson. Also leaving with the first group were team leader Bob Rydze, coaches Kenny Armstrong and Wenbo Chen, sports psychologist Dr. Chris Carr, trainer Terry Robinson and media officer Jen Lowery.

The rest of the team – with the exception of Dan Laak and Matt Scoggin, who will head out after the NCAA Championships – will arrive on Friday.

The first day was a little rough with the fatigue of traveling for about 30 hours (we left on Sunday afternoon and since we crossed the international dateline along the way, we didn’t actually arrive until Tuesday late morning). After arriving at the hotel, we had a quick lunch and headed over to the pool for a light workout to give the divers a chance to move around a bit after being on a plane for so long. We then went back to the hotel, had dinner and tried to stay awake as long as possible to adjust to the new time zone, but we were all really tired.

After a good night’s sleep, everyone felt much better in the morning and was ready to head off to practice, but getting there wasn’t easy. Our hotel is actually very close to the pool, but there’s a Formula One Grand Prix race this week, and the course is right between the hotel and pool, so a lot of the roads have been blocked off and it’s taking longer to get to the pool. There’s shuttle service from our hotel to the pool, but with the roads blocked off, only smaller busses have been running. The first few times we took the shuttle, it was full (it stops at other hotels before it gets to us) and we were told it would be another 20 minutes until the next one. So, we’ve done a lot of waiting for the bus and a couple times we’ve ended up taking cabs.

Because of the race, we’re told it’ll be really loud in the pool on Sunday, when the actual race is being held. We can already hear the cars from inside the pool, but there have only been one or two out there at a time. They say it’ll be so loud on race day that on Thursday, they started handing out earplugs when you went through the security checkpoint near the pool entrance.

After Thursday's first practice, team leader Bob Rydze and I set out about town to try to find a nice restaurant to have a team dinner later in the week. With everyone driving on the left side of the road and having so many roads closed, it's been interesting trying to get a sense of direction, so it was an adventure as we tried to figure out Melbourne's tram system. We got a little turned around, but everyone in Australia has been so nice and friendly that we had no problems finding people who could point us to the right trams and the right stops.

After that, Bob and I headed to the pool, where the team was having its second practice of the day. Practices have been going well, and the team has Friday morning off. Friday afternoon's practice will be the first with all 14 divers here.

- Jen Lowery