The static heats were last night. They ran all the heats
in one session as opposed to splitting them over two evenings as they did with
the dynamics. It was good to do them all at once, but did mean it was a little
difficult coaching the rest of the NZ team and the honourary Kiwi stragglers we’ve
picked up (Bjarte from Norway and Jodie from Australia who are here alone).
Luckily we were all at different times. I unfortunately didn’t manage to see
many divers but from the results lists you can see that mostly white cards were
given out. The boys had a cut off of 6:06 for the 23 person finals and the
girls were around low four minutes, so it was much as we’d expected going in.
There were some impressive performances and I think there are some new divers
that could surprise us with really great dives in the finals – watch out for
the girls especially.
I coached Chris through a tough 5:24 static. He was in
the second heat and this really is not his favourite event, but I’m pleased he
did not pull out too early, I’m sure he was tempted.
I then disappeared
to my room and rested for a couple of hours prior to my check in time. My
official top was 6:58 pm (quite late to wait around for) and the little pool
area is generally quite hot with not many chairs so it’s more comfortable to
not stay there any longer than necessary before diving.
I got into a great
relaxed state (almost asleep) prior to changing, but struggled a bit
after. I found the pool very deep and it
was difficult to get comfortable with my head resting on the side. It’s meant
to be 1.4m in the deep end and the organisers provided umbrella stands for
those of us who could not reach the bottom very well, but they only gave us
another 100mm. I’m not that short so I’m sure the Japanese ladies struggled
much more. I don’t warm up so need to take the time to relax prior to my dive. I
might just sit on the side for the finals and get in later. Anyway, having not
trained a lot of statics in the last couple of months (unintentionally – it
just worked out that way around travel and the last competition, plus my static
training dive on arrival was aborted thanks to immense jet lag and a cold pool).
I struggled a little more than usual with my contractions, and had a pretty
strong heart beat for the first 2 or 3 minutes, not fast, just heavy. The contractions
started pretty early for me, which I found a bit disappointing, but they were
not too big or regular and I mostly managed to remain in control and pretty
relaxed. The dive was fine and I have plenty left – in fact it was one of the
first times I’ve gone over 6:30 without feeling very tired after. Just three or
four hook breaths and I’d pretty much recovered. So I ended up first qualifier
for the women’s final with 6:34. Hopefully this was a good training dive for
the final and that my body is starting to remember so I’ll be a bit more
relaxed for Sunday!
Guy did an easy 7:11 dive and William 7:02 for easy
qualification to the finals. They were both just before me so I unfortunately completely
missed their dives.
The static heats had four people at a time, starting
every 14 minutes, ordered from smallest to largest announced performance. The
organisers have LED displays of the times in each lane so spectators can see
where the divers are up to and how much they achieved. It’s really great,
otherwise you just have no idea unless you sit there with a stopwatch and
really focus. It’ll be good for coaches and team captains in the finals too.
Unfortunately they were announcing (in Italian) throughout the performances,
but it didn’t really throw me, probably because I can’t understand it anyway –
I barely recognise my own name.
The time for the static finals has changed to 9am Sunday finishing
around mid-day in order to be able to complete protests, doping tests, etc
prior to the closing ceremony. It’s not going to be fun for anyone to have to
do a late doping test at about 10pm after dynamic followed by an early start in
static. Remember that the finals will be live streamed on www.europeevolutioncup.com and www.evolutiontv.com
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