Olympia's Olympian: In The News

Photographed (from left to right):

• Dylan, Maddie and Coach Alex at the Opening Ceremony (from Instagram: thenzteam)
• Maddie photographed by the Press while training at Olympia (from The Press)
• Maddie and Dylan walking the streets of Paris (from Instagram: The NZ Team)

While enjoying her time in Paris ahead of her comptetion on Friday, our amazing gymnast is stealing the spotlight back home in NZ! Maddie was featured in a news article earlier this week by the Press, just a few days before she hits the Olympic stage!

"Flying high: Olympian trampolinist Maddie Davidson defies fear and hurdles

It’s fitting that Christchurch trampolinist Maddie Davidson wants to pull off one of the most dangerous routines at the Paris Olympics.

It involves three connected somersaults, twisting and turning high up in the air. It’s a “gamble” - a risk-it-all-for-the-glory kind of routine that - if she pulls it off - could land her a first Olympic medal.

It’s a nod to her daring 7-year-old self, who “freaked Mum and Dad out” by trying to copy her friend flipping and tumbling on a trampoline.

“I was a bit crazy and didn't have a lot of control so they put me in classes at my gymnastics centre [Olympia Gymnastics Sports] and I've never left.”

Now, the 25-year-old will attempt “one of the hardest routines in the world” at her second Olympic Games.

Her road to Paris has involved juggling training, work, financial struggles, a long-distance relationship with a fellow Kiwi trampoline star, and copping a lot of flak from her older brother for still living at home.

Regardless, her full-time trampolining job that “doesn’t really pay like a full-time job” is an opportunity Davidson wants to maximise.

She spends about 40 hours each week dedicated to her craft, including 25 hours on the tramp plus gym, pool, running and mental sessions.

Her athlete funding doesn’t quite cut the mustard, so she has a part-time coaching job. She’s also been doing a commerce degree part-time on top of that.

“[The degree] took me about seven years but I’m just so stoked that I finished it because there was a long time where I didn’t think I was going to be able to.”

Davidson was completely self funded before the Tokyo Olympic Games where she finished 10th and became the first female Kiwi Olympian in the sport.

It was an almighty high, but behind the scenes, she “was very close to burning out”.

“I was injured going into Tokyo, so there was physical pain ... financial strain and there was definitely a lot of times where I questioned it.

“But as soon as I went to the Olympics and I got that taste of what that competition was like, I knew I had to come back.”

She’s diplomatic when it comes to her thoughts about access to funding, conceding “there's only so much money that goes around”.

Higher placings equal better funding. Being brought into the High Performance Sport New Zealand programme after Tokyo - and gaining its funding and resources - made a “massive difference”.

Yet, one hurdle remains the same: living with her parents.

“Renting just isn’t possible... everything that I earn has to go back into trampolining,” Davidson says.

Mum Gaylene admits her daughter could be “a little tidier”, but her parents barely see her, dad Craig says, because “she does such long days”.

“A lot of athletes are having to struggle and try and make ends meet,” he says.

“There's a whole other level of sportsmen out there trying their best to do whatever: trampolining, wrestling, fencing, breakdancing ... we punch above our weight for a little country, it’s quite an amazing thing.”

Davidson has learnt skills she wasn’t expecting too, like Russian [the langyage]. She trains under coach and ex-athlete Alex Nilov at Olympia Gymnastic Sports in Wigram. He didn’t speak any English when he moved from Kazakhstan.

“We spent our first year communicating in hand gestures,” Davidson says. They’ve now worked together for 12 years and built “really good trust”.

Another key support person happens to be the only other Kiwi Olympic trampolinist - Davidson’s Auckland-based boyfriend Dylan Schmidt. He’s a history maker himself as the first New Zealander to compete in trampoline at the Olympic Games (Rio 2016) and the first Kiwi medallist in the sport (bronze at Tokyo).

“The biggest part for me is going to have my loved ones, my family, my friends, there watching because they've been on this journey with me.”

A top five finish feels possible this year, maybe even a podium spot if she can pull off her trailblazing new routine. She’s learnt plenty since her Olympic debut when she performed only nine of the standard 10 skills in a routine.

“I was so nervous, I was so stressed ... and I got onto the trampoline and I just had a brain fade.”

Mind over body is huge in a sport where you’re jumping great heights while flipping, twisting and landing back on two feet - mental skills she continues to develop with a sports psychologist."

To view the original article click here