Madeleine Edmunds

Madeleine Edmunds (born 3 January 1992) is an Australian rower. She is a five-time national champion and a 2016 Olympian.

Club and state rowing Raised in Brisbane, Edmunds' is the daughter of 1984 Olympic bronze medal winning rower Ian Edmunds. Madeleine was educated at St Margaret's Anglican Girls School at Ascot and her senior rowing has been from the Commercial Rowing Club in Brisbane.

Edmunds' first state representative selection came at aged sixteen in 2008 in the Queensland youth eight who contested and won the Bicentennial Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships. In 2009, 2010 and 2011 Edmunds made three further appearances in the Queensland youth eight for three further wins. On six occasions from 2012 to 2018 Edmunds was selected in Queensland senior women's eights competing for the Queen's Cup at the Interstate Regatta. In 2018 she was Queensland's representative contesting and winning the interstate single-sculls championship for the Nell Slatter Trophy.

In 2017 in Commercial colours she won the national double scull title at the Australian Rowing Championships with Olympia Aldersey. In 2018 crewed a composite Australian selection eight which won the women's eight title at the Australian Rowing Championships.

International representative rowing Edmunds first represented Australia aged sixteen at the 2008 Junior World Rowing Championships in Linz, Austria in a coxless pair which placed seventh. The following year at the Junior World Rowing Championships in 2009 in Brive-La Gaillarde, Edmunds won a silver medal in a quad scull. She again rowed at Junior World Championships in 2010 placing fourth in a double scull at Racice with Jessica Hall. They made a shock exit from the games in the repechage finishing fifth in a tightly fought race and missing out on a spot in the A-Final. The crew powered out from the start up against crews from Netherlands, Poland, Australia, USA and China. With Poland and the Netherlands taking the lead it was a battle between the rest for the remaining two spots in A Final. As they approached the final 500 m, they upped their rate but as did the USA and China and with 100 metres to go the three crews were bow ball to bow ball, and so close at the finish it resulted in a photo to decide who would join Poland and the Netherlands in the A-Final. The photos showed that Australia had finished fifth, a mere 0.06 seconds behind China, and 0.11 seconds behind USA, who'd nabbed the final two qualification spots. A visibly distraught crew spoke to the media post-race. "Yes we are pretty devastated, we threw everything at it, with the field so good in this event in particular, and at the Olympic Games, and all it took was a few strokes, that weren’t as good as we can produce, for the result to happen", said Hall.

Edmunds continued to row at the highest world level into 2017 but moved into a double scull with Olympia Aldersey. They contested two World Rowing Cups in Europe before finally, Edmunds won a senior world championship medal - a bronze - at the 2017 World Rowing Championships in Sarasota, Florida.