Diver Maddison Keeney’s journey back from world of pain to Paris Olympics with Anabelle Smith

This Aussie Olympic medal prospect lived with pain so severe it hurt when she reached for a dinner plate. She tells how she beat the odds to make it to the 2024 Paris Games.

Maddison Keeney’s journey to get to the Olympics Games was riddled with pain. Picture: Getty Images

When Olympic diving medal prospect Maddison Keeney reached for a dinner plate or put her arms above her head, searing pain shot through her body.

Doing up a bra and driving was agonising. Heaven forbid she accidentally roll over in bed onto her shoulder.

This had been Keeney’s life as she battled to stay at the top of her game with a serious shoulder injury from 2019. It makes being in Paris remarkable enough, but as a medal contender, quite astonishing.

“I had a long term chronic shoulder impingement,” Keeney said ahead of her 3m synchronised event with long-term diving partner Anabelle Smith.

“Nothing structurally but something that made it sore all the time. It affected me driving, picking something up, raising my hand above by head.

Australia's Maddison Keeney competed in the semi-final of the women's 3m springboard diving event during the 2024 World Aquatics Championships. Picture: AFP

“It was chronic pain and it got pretty miserable.

“If I got a plate out of the cupboard or rolled over on my side, it was a punching pain.

It pulled me down quite a bit.”

Keeney tried rehabilitation before finally having surgery, which she timed along with an arthroscope to clean out cartilage in her knee.

It took a year for the shoulder pain to go away and the injury to recover, but there was an unexpected side effect from the successful procedure – she had to retrain her body and brain to dive properly again.

“I had some issues. When you have pain for so long your body expects it and I had changed the way I moved. It affected my diving technique a lot,’’ she said.

“I had to learn the basic movement techniques so my brain could recognise it.

“I had to rewire my brain to say this movement doesn’t hurt. Re-teaching my body to do things.

“I feel like the six million dollar woman. I’m in good form and shape.

“It’s amazing to discover what you can do without pain, what it does mentally, how much more you can enjoy it, being able to put 110 per cent in not worrying about things.’’

Maddison Keeney had to teach herself how to move again after beating her injury. Picture: Tom Parrish

Keeney and Smith bring top form and reputation into Paris with standouts including gold at the Paris Olympic test event last year and silver at the world championships.

For Keeney, Paris will also be a chance for redemption after they she was unable to dive with Smith as their qualifying event was in China during Covid and there were banned from competing.

“It made me feel pretty cranky. I was coming back from injury and knew the synchro was my best chance of going to an Olympics,’’ she said.

“So Paris means a lot to me.’’

Originally published as Diver Maddison Keeney’s journey back from world of pain to Paris Olympics with Anabelle Smith