Maddison Elliott

Background

Maddison Gae Elliott was born on 3 November 1998.

Career

At the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, she became the youngest Australian Paralympic medallist by winning bronze medals in the women"s 400 m and 100 m freestyle S8 events. She has right side cerebral palsy as a result of a neonatal stroke, and was diagnosed with the condition when she was four years old. In addition to swimming, she participated in athletics, and by 2010 held six Australian age group classification records.

In 2012, she was living in Gillieston Heights, New South Wales, and attending Bishop Tyrrell Anglican College.

She has an older sister Dimity Elliott. Elliott is an S8 classified swimmer who was ranked first in the world in the S8 50 m backstroke in 2012.

By 2010, she held three Australian age group classification records, and the 2010 New South Wales Multi-Class Long Course Championships, she had five first-place finishes. She represented Australia at the 2011 Oceania Paralympic Championships, and later that year competed in the Canberra hosted Australian Multi-Class Age Championships.

She was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London in swimming.

Afterwards, she met with Prince Harry and gave him a Lizzie the Frill Neck Lizard, the mascot of the Australian Paralympic Committee and Australia"s Paralympic Teams. This resulted in the Australian Chef de Mission, Jason Hellwig, officially presenting Lizzie to the Chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), Lord Coe, who gave him a Mandeville in return. In November 2015, she was awarded the New South Wales Institute of Sport Regional Athlete of the Year.

Achievements

• She made her national team debut that same year at the Youth Paralympic Games, where she won five gold medals. At that event, she won a bronze, five silver and three gold medals. On 31 August 2012 at the London Aquatics Centre, Elliott slashed 23 seconds off her personal best time to win a bronze medal in the S8 400 m freestyle. She became, at age 13, the youngest ever Australian to win a Paralympic medal, a record formerly held by Elizabeth Edmondson. She went on to win silver in S8 50 m freestyle, bronze in the S8 100 m Freestyle, and gold in the Women"s 4x100 m Freestyle Relay – 34 Points. She won gold medals in the Women"s 50 m and 100 m Freestyle S8 events and a silver medal in the Women"s 400 m Freestyle S8 at the August 2013 IPC World Championships in Montreal, Canada, and was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2014 Australia Day Honours "for service to sport as a Gold Medallist at the London 2012 Paralympic Games." At the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Elliott won a gold medal in the women"s 100 m S8 freestyle in a world record time of 1:05.32, breaking the record set by Jessica Long in 2012. At the 2015 IPC World Championships, she won the gold medals in the women"s 50 m freestyle S8, women"s 100 m freestyle S8 in a world record time of 1.04.71, women's 100 m backstroke S8 and women"s 4 × 100 m freestyle relay 34 points, silver medals in the women"s 400 m freestyle S8 and women"s 4 × 100 m medley relay 34 points and a bronze medal in the women"s 100 m butterfly S8. Her success at the IPC World Championships led to her being awarded Australia"s 2015 Paralympic Swimmer of the Year.

Membership

She then became the youngest Australian gold medallist when she was a member of the women"s 4 × 100 m freestyle relay 34 points team She is a member of Nuswim Club, started swimming when she was six months old, and commenced competitive swimming in 2009. In November 2012, Elliott and Rheed McCracken, the youngest members of the 2012 Paralympic Team, were together named the Paralympic Junior Athlete of the Year.