Madeleine's Story
Madeleine ‘Maddie’ Edmunds joined Jennifer Cleary, Kerry Hore and Jessica Hall in the Women’s Quadruple Sculls at Rio, in what was her Olympic debut.
The boat made a disappointing exit from the 2016 Games when the crew finished fifth in a tightly fought repechage and therefore missed out on a spot in the A-Final. The crew powered out the start, up against crews from the Netherlands, Poland, Australia, USA and China. With 100 metres to go Australia, China and the USA were bow ball to bow ball, and the finish resulted in a photo-finish to decide who would join Poland and the Netherlands in the A-Final. Once the photos were back, it was declared that Australia had finished fifth, a mere 0.06 seconds behind China, and 0.11 seconds behind USA, who had nabbed the final two qualification spots. The result was somewhat unexpected as the crew had had a good lead-up to the Games, finishing with a silver medal at the final 2016 World Rowing Cup 3 in Poland, the last international racing event before the Games began.
Born into a rowing family, from a small child all Maddie dreamed of was to compete for Australia at an Olympic Games. Her father, Ian Edmunds, competed for Australia numerous times and won an Olympic bronze medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Games in the Men’s Eight.
Selected in a crew that has been competing together since 2013, Edmunds has been an U23 World Champion in this boat class, having won gold in Trakai, Lithuania in 2012 alongside Hall as well as Olympia Aldersey and Rebekah Hooper.
Making her first senior team in 2013, Edmunds and her current crew mates won multiple World Rowing Cup medals and qualified the boat for Rio after finishing fifth at the 2015 World Rowing Championships in Aiguebelette, France.
Outside of rowing, Queensland-born Edmunds is studying business and is an avid baker.
