Indiana University Athletics
2007 Big Ten Diaries: Christina Loukas
2/9/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
Feb. 9, 2007
Throughout the course of the Big Ten Championships from Feb. 8-10, select Indiana swimmers and divers will check in with IUHOOSIERS.com. Junior diver Christina Loukas' account of day one appears below.
Thursday 2/8/07
7:30 a.m.
This morning we woke up to the Illinois parents in the room next to us. They got an early start and unfortunately woke us up in the process. Ashley (Greene) and I went back to bed and slept until our alarms went off at 8:30. We went downstairs and got some fruit from the buffet because that was the only thing that looked decent.
9:30 a.m.
We made our way over to the pool to start stretching before our warm-up. Our workout was from 10:15-11:15, but we only needed about 30 minutes since we were just doing one-meter. After our workout with the Michigan divers we headed back to the hotel.
11:50 a.m.
I went downstairs to the lobby and met up with my parents, since they just flew in this morning. The rest of the team came down and we headed back over to the pool.
1 p.m.
The event started and we knew it was going to be a long one. There were 46 divers and we estimated the meet was going to take about 2.5 hours, which equals no fun. It's hard diving in long meets because you have to sit around for 20 minutes in between every dive, so every time you go up to compete it's like doing it cold. But in between every dive I would put on like three layers since it was pretty cold in the pool area, and sit and work on my Celebrity Crosswords. I also listened to my music to get me pumped up. My favorite song of the day was "Bleed American" by Jimmy Eat World or whatever it is ... I'm pretty bad remembering the names of people and songs.
3:45 p.m.
Finally made it back to the hotel and my legs were exhausted from jumping around so much to try and keep my body warm during the event. As a team we all did really well. We had three people in the top eight, which was really exciting since we were all coming back for the finals.
7 p.m.
Linds (Lindsay Weigle), Brit (Brittney Feldman), and I headed back to the pool for the third time today to get ready for our finals. We walked in and the pool was packed. It really got me excited and got the adrenaline pumping. I was pretty psyched to start competing.
8:15 p.m.
The event finally started and I was extremely nervous. I don't know why, but I get the most nervous at Big Tens. It really makes no sense to me, but I guess it works. I dove really well and only missed one of my dives. I ended up winning, which was really exciting. Linds and Brit got sixth and fifth, I believe. After our event ended, we all hurried over to watch the last relay of the night. Our team was in lane four, and it ended up being one of the most exciting races. I don't really know much about swimming, but we did awesome and won the event. By the end of the day IU was in second place. We are behind Michigan by 30 points so we should be able to close up their lead after tomorrow.
10 p.m.
After a long day, Ash and I went to sleep watching Pretty Woman.
