Maddison Levi

NSW native Maddison Levi grew up representing Australia in Rugby Sevens as a junior. In December 2019 Maddi helped Queensland topple NSW 19-15 to win the national youth girls sevens championship title on the Sunshine Coast. Following the championships, Maddi was named player of the tournament.

She went on to be named to the national youth girls squad ahead of the World Schools Sevens in Auckland later that month.

In 2020, Maddi and her sister Teagan Levi starred in the QAFLW competition with Bond University. Maddi was then drafted into the Gold Coast Suns AFLW team. A tall forward, Maddi played eight games for Gold Coast, however she was placed on the Suns inactive list in October 2021 in order to pursue rugby sevens full-time.

Maddi was also a member of the Bond University Sevens side playing in the University Sevens competition in May 2021. She scored three tries in Bond’s 29-7 win over Griffith University in the national final following wins over Sydney University and the University of Technology Sydney. After the tournament, Maddi was named by Australian coaches to the ‘All Stars’ team.

Maddi made her Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 and marked her arrival by scoring twice in Australia's first game of the tournament, a 48-0 victory over Japan.

Australia would progress to the quarter-final of the tournament, narrowly falling to Fiji in a tight 14-12 defeat. Maddi added a third try at the Olympics during the 5th-8th playoffs, where Australia defeated both the Russian Olympic Committee and the United States to claim fifth.

Maddi was the standout player in the Australian team that claimed their first Commonwealth Games gold medal in Birmingham in 2022. Making her Commonwealth Games debut alongside Teagan, the long-striding winger scored 10 tries during the tournament including three in the crucial semi-final win over New Zealand and one in the final against Fiji.

The 2022 World Series Rookie of the Year, Maddi was part of the team that won the 2022 Rugby Sevens World Cup in Cape Town, scoring a hat-trick in the final against New Zealand.

Australia finished second in the 2022-23 World Rugby Sevens Series, with New Zealand taking the title, with Maddi winning the Shawn MacKay Medal as Women’s Sevens Player of the Year. She also narrowly missed out on winning World Player of the Year and her 57 tries were the most in a World Series by any player.

At the end of 2023, Maddi and Teagan re-signed with Rugby Australia despite interest from the AFLW and the NRLW.

Maddi once again was a force to be reckoned with in the 2023-24 World Rugby Sevens Series and was a big reason why Australia ended the season as champions. At the grand final event of the series in Madrid, with the overall series winner still to be decided, Maddi scored after the final siren in the semi-finals to beat New Zealand 21-19 and a hat-trick against France in the grand final for a 26-7 win. They were four of the 13 tries Maddi scored that weekend which took her season tally to 69 tries, 12 more than in her record-breaking season a year prior.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics Maddi and the team were a perfect three wins from three games in the pool stage. They took care of Ireland in the quarter-finals 40-7 before a strong Canadian team halted Australia's run in the semi-finals, inflicting a 21-12 loss.

In a tense fight for a bronze medal against the USA, the Americans scored a converted try after time expired for a 14-12 score to relegate the Aussies to fourth place.

Maddi was a standout in the tournament, breaking the Olympic record for most tries scored at an Olympic Games with 14 tries, surpassing the previous record of 10.

Incredibly, considering her domination, Maddi did not make a representative team in any code until her late teens – a fact she says has a big impact on the player she has become.

"My work ethic came from the ability to get knocked back and realise that it's not the be all, end all,” Maddi said. “You have to actually work if you want something.

“But I probably wouldn't be the athlete I am today if I walked straight through on every team. It's actually shaped the person I am today."