Maddison Keeney dived to an Olympic silver in the women’s 3m springboard event in Paris for the biggest prize of her medal-laden career. The 28-year-old from Perth, who won a bronze in the springboard synchro event in 2016, added a second medal at the Olympic Aquatics Centre on Friday, beaten only by another of the seemingly invincible Chinese, Chen Yiwen.

Keeney, who has enjoyed a decade-long career with considerable success, especially with her synchro partner Anabelle Smith, scored 343.10 from her five-dive program as Chen proved a runaway winner with 376.00. But it was a mark of Keeney’s quality that she was able to beat the other Chinese diver Chang Yani (318.75) into the bronze medal position.

Needing to nail her final, most difficult dive – a forward two-and-a-half somersaults with two twists – Keeney, who won three medals at this year’s world championships, did just that, producing barely a splash as she entered the pool. It scored her 78.20 points, not just her best effort of the competition but the best by any of the 12 finalists in the last round, leaving her close to tears while being embraced by the delighted Australian coaching staff.

It was the country’s first medal of the diving programme in Paris after Keeney and Smith had come close, with their fifth-place finish in the springboard synchro event. Now the Auckland-born diver Keeney, who missed the 2021 Games through injury, can celebrate a remarkable tally of 16 medals in world, Olympic and Commonwealth championships.

It was the seventh Chinese triumph out of seven diving finals contested in Paris, making them overwhelming favourites to complete an eight-event clean sweep in the men’s 10m platform event on Saturday. Earlier, Australia’s 2023 world champion Cassiel Rousseau qualified for the platform semi-finals on Saturday.

Meanwhile. Nick Sloman’s risk to improve his placing has cost him a top-10 finish in the Olympic men’s marathon swimming event. The Australian dropped from sixth to 11th in the 10km event on Friday at Pont Alexandre III, won by Hungarian Kristof Rasovszky. Fellow Australian Kyle Lee finished 13th.

On the fourth of six laps, Sloman shifted position in a bid to move up in the field and he burned too much energy. Sloman ended up swimming by himself on the last lap as he dropped out of the top 10 at his first Olympics.

At the athletics track, teenage middle-distance star Peyton Craig took enormous self-belief from going within a whisker of becoming just the second Australian man in more than half a century to contest an Olympic 800m final.

Craig, 19, ran a tactically-astute race on Friday in Paris that belied his inexperience on the world stage, stopping the clock in a personal best time of one minute 44.11 seconds in sixth place. It was easily the quickest of the three semi-finals, so fourth would have been good enough to earn the Queenslander a spot in the final on Saturday night.