Yesterday we decided once again to head up to Dubai, this time to check out the
FINA Diving World Series. Though Toots gave up diving last summer, we are all now that bit more interested in it, having watched not just her, but potential Olympians and
National Champions practice (and crash out) week-in-week out at the COM in Midland. I
wish she could dive again here, but Dubai is a touch too far to come every week, and sadly there's nothing available in Abu Dhabi.
The World Series was held in the Hamdan [Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid] Sports Centre which is the biggest multi-purpose facility in the world. Naturally. Completed in the summer of 2010 with a total capacity of 15,000 spectators, the stadium hosts international aquatic events as well as dry sports events like tennis, basketball, volleyball, netball, crickets, field hockey and badminton. Check out the bottom left video on
this page to see how.
Anyway, bar a couple holding the Mexican flag, and a row of American's (quite clearly the extended family of
one of the competitors) in front of us, the support was most definitely for the Brits. The 10m platform semi-finals was all that we saw in our session, but that worked out well, since really, they're the cool dives aren't they... Except for maybe the synchronised ones: I wouldn't have minded seeing them.
I missed the other British girl, Tonia Couch. But I'd never heard of either of them anyway....
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| Who everyone was waiting to see... |
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| ...though we also supported the German. |
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| Moments before his 'perfect 10'. |
In the Finals that evening the Brits didn't do too badly either. If you're
that interested in the results you can read them
here.
1 comment:
Not surprised about the Mexicans - its something we're (!) particularly good at, maybe because of the longstanding tradition of free diving off the cliffs in Acapulco. That, and Tae Kwon Do are the big medal winners for the Mexicans in the Olympics.... who would have guessed!
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