The duet leads the charge!

Whew! I was too tired to write last night. We had a pretty intense day. But tonight was our first day of competition with the duet! They swam their technical program, 24th out of 25 duets. The whole time we watched the other duets I just kept waiting for any duet to knock my socks off. Then came our duet and they did just that. They were higher than anyone there, they were the most elegant and the most beautiful, they were consistently strong in every single one of their elements (unlike some of the other top countries that completely bombed some elements). And, without any American judge on the panel, they are now well ahead of Spain and France holding tightly to third place! This is so exciting for all of us. We all just bounced our way back into the village, sprinted to McDonald's for a quick dinner (it's 11:00pm!) and raced off to tell our families about the news. This sets us up so well for team, we're so thrilled with our wonderful Duet-y! It's very interesting to see other countries crack under the pressure while we just seem to get better and better.
This morning started off with our trainer playing a mix cd that I made for the team. During Bill Withers' "Lean on Me" our head coach, asst. coach, manager and trainer all stood up and started singing along and leaning on each other. It was pretty adorable. And it kicked off a great day. We had so much intensity, it was so exhilarating! The duet and our coaches needed to rest so the remainder of the team rested and then landdrilled on our own. When we got in to practice a little bit during the duet warm up our coach was very impressed with the improvements we had made during our self run land drills. We were excited because now she can really focus on the duet and know that the team will still be working hard!
The competition tonight was very interesting. It's nice to see that the level of athletes internationally has really improved. It's very exciting for our sport. But most of all it feels so good to be competing finally! I can count the days on one hand! Thanks to everyone back home for all of your phone calls and e-mails and well wishes. It's working! Keep it up!
Love,
Lauren
(I need to sleep!)