Maddi Keeney

Springboard diver Maddi Keeney has pushed the envelope of her sport in more than a decade at the top. Combining pure power with flawless grace, she has helped usher in a new era of increased difficulty in elite diving.

The West Australian has formed an unmatched partnership with Anabelle Smith, winning Olympic, Commonwealth Games and world championship medals in the 3m synchronised springboard event.

Maddi won silver in the 1m springboard at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014 and teamed up with Anabelle to claim bronze in the 3m.

She challenged for a medal at the 2015 World Championships, where she was in fourth spot before her final dive in the 1m springboard, but failed the dive and unfortunately finished last in the 12-strong final. She finished seventh in the 3m springboard after taking a penalty for a re-started dive.

In her Olympic debut in Rio in 2016, Maddi claimed Australia's fifth medal of the Games, a bronze in the 3m synchro alongside Anabelle.

The duo finished on 299.19 points, behind Chinese gold medallists Shi Tingmao and Wu Minxia and Italy’s Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape in silver.

Maddi and Anabelle were in fifth place heading into the last round before their fifth and final dive, a forward two and half somersault one twist pike, put them into medal contention in third. With only Canada left to dive, Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware’s final dive score of 47.28 wasn’t enough to push Maddi and Anabelle off the podium, with the Aussies holding on by one point.

Maddi won gold in the 1m springboard at the 2017 World Championships before claiming silver in the 3m springboard at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast the following year.

After missing out on the Tokyo Olympics due to qualification issues caused by COVID-19, Maddi won double gold at her third Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 – in the 3m individual and the 3m synchronised with Anabelle. The pair led from start to finish in a near-faultless performance.

She also won silver in the mixed 3m synchronised with Shixin Li, despite the pair having their first training session together a week before arriving in Birmingham.

At the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, she teamed up with Domonic Bedggood to win silver in the mixed 3m synchronised.

The pair upgraded it to gold at the World Championships in Doha in February 2024, with a total score of 300.93. The Australians took control of the competition thanks to a fine inward two-and-a-half somersault with pike in round three. Later in the meet, Maddi and Anabelle won silver in the 3m synchro. Maddi was also part of the Australian team that won bronze in the mixed 3m and 10m event.

Following the World Championships, the Paris 2024 women’s synchronised 3m springboard pair has won gold twice at the Diving World Cup Super Final in China and at the Paris 2024 Olympic Test Event in May.

Nothing would stop Maddi from lining up at the Paris Olympics this time around. Her Olympic Games started with Anabelle in the women's synchronised 3m springboard, where they missed out on a medal in heart-breaking fashion.

Heading into the final round, they were in third place and needed only 0.84 more points than American duo Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon to move into the silver medal position, but an Anabelle slip on their fifth dive sent her off course, giving them a final round score of 48.60 to drop them to fifth place.

Maddi's second and final event of the Games, the 3m springboard, she saved her best dive until her last dive to seal a silver medal. The first individual Olympic medal of her long career.

New Zealand-born, Maddi moved from Perth to Brisbane when she finished high school in 2014 to further her diving career. She has a bachelor of physics and computer science from the University of Queensland and works for a major insurance company in Brisbane.