Diary Entry 16th May 2008 – (84 days until Opening Ceremony)

Swollen legs, eyes hanging out of our heads, trying to stay awake so we fit into the required time zone as quickly as possible, hungry waiting for our team dinner, angry and agitated… These would be just a few ways to describe the feeling in the group after flying for a ridiculous amount of time (24hours plus) to reach our final destination - Monchengladbach (Germany).  And yes as is nearly always the case our hotel room was not ready when we arrived. 

But we all accept the draw backs, knowing that we have the chance to represent Australia at an Olympic Games… With only 84 days remaining before the start of the games 08/08/08; D-Day has arrived. Currently we have a squad of 25 girls, however in August only 16 girls will be going to the Olympics. The Olympic team is finalised in June.  Final pools for the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games have been released (based on world ranking) and we have been handed a tough pool, which includes perennial powerhouse the Netherlands and host nation China as well as Korea, Spain and South Africa.

May 17 is the start of the 2008 Champions Trophy, this is where the top 6 nations (Netherlands, Germany, Argentina, Australia, China and Japan) in the world fight it out for bragging rights going in to the Olympic Games. During the next phase both players and coaches are presented with many challenges. For the players the biggest thing playing on our minds is selection. This tournament provides us (the players) with probably the last opportunity to press for selection and book a ticket to the games. It really is a pressure time with a lot of the girls already feeling the heat. It’s also tough for the coach and off-field team; coaches don’t want to give too much away they want to have things up their sleeve to use, but they also want to try things, test people out, see if they have the right mix etc

Theme going into the tournament:
“Fierce Urgency of Now”- everything you do individually and we do as a team matters