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‘Forged in fire’: The heartbreaks behind Aussie diver’s historic Olympic moment

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  • August 9, 2024
‘Forged in fire’: The heartbreaks behind Aussie diver’s historic Olympic moment

Maddison Keeney’s palms were sweaty, knees weak and arms were heavy as she awaited a final dive in the Olympics. Eminem portrayed the Australian’s pickle in Paris perfectly.

An Olympic medal was on the line. History too. Talk about pressure. Her legs have buckled in the past. She has fallen from the board. Click-seeking hate merchants maligned her online following failures, with brutal YouTube videos drawing thousands of views.

The Brisbane-based IT specialist had spoken openly about her battles with nerves in the past and now it was all on the line once again.

But those experiences have fortified her. As the Western Australian said later, she is forged with fire and felt alive as she sucked in the oxygen ahead of her dive in the 3m springboard on Friday night in Paris.

This “was living”. No matter how much her heart was racing, Keeney would not change a thing. This was where she wanted most to be as she prepared for the dive that saw her become the first Australian to win a medal in the Olympic 3m springboard.

“How do you deal with a last dive with a medal on the line? You’re physically shaking. Your heart is pounding. You’re on the board and it’s a different beast,” she said.

“But it’s … living. This is absolutely living. This is what you live for. Exhilarating is a great word for it.”

Australia’s Maddison Keeney competes in the women’s 3m springboard diving final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on August 9, 2024. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)Source: AFP

“I’M COMING FOR THEM.”

This moment was the culmination of a career of setbacks and highlights courtesy of her extreme athleticism, great timing and resilience, but also her human failings. She has world-beating ability as a diver but has been afflicted by nerves when soaring too close to the sun.

When striving for excellence, mediocrity will not do. Keeney needed to deliver at Paris La Defense Arena and set herself a challenging program that raised the risk of failure. But only by nailing five challenging dives could she challenge the dominance of China’s supreme divers.

It was an attitude she had adopted several years ago when, ahead of the 2019 World Championships, she declared she was “coming for” the Chinese rivals who lead the sport and have enjoyed a stranglehold on the diving platforms once again in Paris.

“I can’t beat them in regular dives so I have to step it up some other way. I’m coming for them,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

She finished the opening round in second place with a strong dive to record a score of 67.50 when a back pike dive with 2 ½ somersaults. And she built from there.

The 28-year-old recorded the same score with her second dive, this time a pike back 2 ½ somersaults. A “blip” on the third dive when scoring 55 did not dislodge her from second.

On her fourth dive, Keeney delivered in style with a 74.40 on a forward pike 3 ½ somersaults dive to retain second spot, raising the stakes for her final entry into the water.

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Keeney underwater after a dive.Source: Getty Images

“I FELT LIKE I COULD BREATHE AGAIN.”

Living in the moment is a mindset many athletes adhere to and Keeney is no different.

This was not the time to consider the twists and turns in her career, as critical as they were to this moment as she walked onto the board.

As a teenager a poor dive in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014 drew derision. She aborted a dive in the final round of the World Championships a year later as she wrestled with her nerves, which prompted scathing headlines and social media sledging.

“Maddison Keeney embarrassing dive”. “Diving Fail”. “A perfect zero”. It is all there online. All that negativity and vile derision.

The “jelly legs” she experienced and the torment she sometimes felt were difficult to handle. But she has been seeing a sports psychologist for the last decade and taken a big leap forward in her approach to diving.

“It’s the failing that really makes you learn the most, I believe,” she told the Gold Coast Bulletin a few years back.

There have been occasional flops since but Keeney has always jumped back aboard the horse, so to speak. There is always the next dive to prepare for. Live in the moment!

Keeney overcame her years of struggle to achieve her greatest success.Source: AFP

She rebounded to win a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and then gold medals at World Championships in 2017 and 2019 and the Commonwealth Games in 2022.

The biggest obstacle came in 2020 when the Tokyo Olympics were delayed due to Covid-19.

Keeney had been preparing well and felt confident in her hopes, despite battling chronic pain in her shoulder and also a knee. But when the Games were postponed for a year, she could not delay surgery any longer.

As the Tokyo Games rolled around a year later, she was left lamenting in tears on the couch.

“I was raring to go for the 2020 Olympics and then Covid happened and I had surgery and I went from a high to scraping the bottom of the barrel,” she told News Corp Australia.

Her golden deeds in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham righted her mindset as she banished the mental scarring associated with a dive that had been troubling her before surgery.

She won golds in the 3m individual and 3m synchronised dive with Anabelle Smith, her partner in Paris, along with a silver in the mixed synchronised dive with Shixin Li.

“I felt like I could breathe again. I felt like I had not been able to breathe for a while,” she said.

Gold Medallist, Chen Yiwen (C), Silver Medallist, Maddison Keeney (L) and Bronze Medallist, Chang Yani on the podium.Source: Getty Images

“IT HAS MADE ME WHO I AM.”

Keeney had a medal wrested from her in Paris when her partner Smith unfortunately took an awkward misstep on their final dive in the 3m springboard synchronised event.

That left Smith shattered but Keeney handled the disappointment with grace. There was always the next dive to focus on, after all.

After a few deep breaths back up on the springboard in Paris on Saturday night, Keeney launched into her last dive.

It was the most testing of the lot – a forward 2 ½ somersault dive with two twists – but up against the might of the Chinese, Keeney knew leaving it all out there was her only option.

She nailed it. In diving, success occurs not with a bang, but rather without a splash. There was barely a ripple in the pool as the Aussie broke the water to score 78.20, the highest of the final round.

Australia’s Maddison Keeney competes in the women’s 3m springboard diving preliminary during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on August 7, 2024. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)Source: AFP

Keeney had said that no matter what occurred in Paris, she was “deeply happy internally” and “happy with where I am in my career and with diving.”

But she is now a shining silver medallist in the Olympics, having split the Chinese team of Chen Yiwen (376 points) and Chang Yani (318.75) with a score of 343.10.

“Coming from kind of the bottom of the barrel around 2020, 2021, missing out on the Tokyo Games … it’s made me a better person, a better athlete and I’ve re-fallen in love with the sport,” she said.

“I used to have a lot of trouble with my nerves and was on all sides of results, from falling off the board to a lot of fourth places.

“Many times my legs have buckled from under me, but going through all those experiences, falling off the board, it’s kind of made me who I am. I feel like I have been forged with fire.”

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