Like some spectacular alien spaceship the Olympic 'Water Cube' landed in Beijing last week and opened its doors to the public for the first time, hosting Olympic trial swimming and diving events.
We went to see the finals of the men's 10m platform and the women's 3m synchronised. Not that we are great diving enthusiasts - I have traumatic memories of standing on top of the 5m platform at Richmond pool as a kid but not being able to work up the courage to jump - but we really wanted to see the inside of the Cube.
To me all the dives looked great - I struggled to understand what made it a 9.5 or a 4.5 - something to do with the straightness of entry and lack of splash. The full house, mainly Chinese, audience on the other hand were clearly knowledgeable - the volume of their clapping in direct correlation to the diver's score. Maybe because China is a good diving country - in fact they won the gold in all the week's events except the men's 10m which went to Sacha Klein from Germany.
We did get the opportunity for some nationalistic cheering. Thomas Daley -the 13 year old GB diving prodigy competed and led the field for the first two rounds. He never really recovered from a poor third dive but still managed to come 6th overall. This result allowed him to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in August and, apparently, he will be the youngest Olympic diver ever (14 on May 21st). His diminutive figure can just about be seen here making his last and qualifying dive. Good luck Thomas!
The synchronised was incredible - so graceful and elegant - how do they manage to dive in perfect unison?
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