Madeline Groves

Madeline Groves
Madeline Groves in June 2016
Personal information
Nickname(s)Mad Dog
Born25 May 1995 (age 28)
Brisbane
Occupationswimmer
Height179 cm (5 ft 10 in)
Weight66 kg (146 lb)
Sport
Sportswimming
Disciplinebutterfly stroke
Coached byMichael Bohl
Medal record
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place 2016 Rio de Janeiro 200 m butterfly
Silver medal – second place 2016 Rio de Janeiro 4×100 m medley
World Championships (LC)
Bronze medal – third place 2015 Kazan 4×100 m medley
Pan Pacific Championships
Gold medal – first place 2018 Tokyo 4×200 m freestyle
Commonwealth Games
Gold medal – first place 2014 Glasgow 4×100 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2014 Glasgow 4×200 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2018 Gold Coast 100 m butterfly
Bronze medal – third place 2014 Glasgow 200 m butterfly
[edit on Wikidata]

Madeline Groves (born 25 May 1995) is an Australian competitive swimmer. She was the Australian national champion in the 200 m butterfly event in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. At the 2014 Commonwealth Games she was a bronze medallist in the 200 m butterfly event, and swam in the heats for the gold medal-winning Australian freestyle relay team. She was selected to represent Australia in the 100 m and 200 m butterfly, and 4 × 200 m freestyle relay events at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Biography

Madeline Groves was born in Brisbane, Queensland, on 25 May 1995.[1] She has two brothers.[2] She attended Wilston State Primary School and St Peters Lutheran College.[3] In 2014, she was an inaugural recipient of the Georgina Hope Rinehart Swimming Excellence Scholarship to study for a Bachelor of Social Science degree at Bond University on Queensland's Gold Coast.[4]

Groves learned to swim when she was a baby,[2] and started competitive swimming when she was twelve years old.[5] As a junior, she won the 100 m and 200 m butterfly and 4 × 100 m medley events, and silver in the 50 m butterfly, at the 2010 Oceania Swimming Championships in Samoa. At the Junior Pan Pacific championships in Hawaii that year she came second in the 200 m butterfly and fifth in the 100 m butterfly events.[2] She took 2011 off, but returned to competitive swimming after she finished high school.[3] She is coached by Michael Bohl at St Peter's Western, where Mitch Larkin, Bronte Barratt, Madison Wilson and Grant Irvine also train.[3] She has known Bohl since 2008,[5] and he has been her coach since 2012. She has been nicknamed "Mad Dog" and "Machine Gun".[3]

In 2013, Groves became the national champion at the 2013 Australian Swimming Championships in the 200 m butterfly event.[1] During 2014, Groves suffered from debilitating pain in her shoulder and neck. This was traced to a clenched jaw, which has been treated by an orthodontist.[3] She defended her national title in the 200 m butterfly event at the 2014 Australian Swimming Championships, and the 2015 Australian Swimming Championships,[1] and in Adelaide in April 2016 at the 2016 Australian Swimming Championships,[6] where she was second in the 100 m butterfly.[3]

At the 2014 Commonwealth Games she was a bronze medallist in the 200 m butterfly event,[3] and swam in the heats for the gold medal-winning Australian freestyle relay team.[7] At the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan, Russia, she was 9th in the 200m butterfly and 11th in the 100 m butterfly events.[3] She swam in the heats of the medley relay,[8] in which the Australian team went on to win.[9]

In April 2016, Groves was selected to represent Australia in the 100 m and 200 m butterfly, and 4 × 200 m freestyle relay events at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.[10] This was her first Olympics.[3] She did not qualify for the semi-final in the 100 m butterfly,[11] but qualified fastest for the final of the 200 m butterfly. She won silver, finishing just three-hundredths of a second behind Spain's Mireia Belmonte.[12]

In June 2021, she announced she was withdrawing from the Australian trials for the 2020 Summer Olympics in protest over "misogynistic perverts in sport and their bootlickers," stating that her decision was "the culmination of years of witnessing and 'benefitting' from a culture that relies on people ignoring bad behaviour to thrive."[13] In December 2020, she had made a post on social media revealing that she had made a complaint to Swimming Australia after a coach made an inappropriate comment towards her.[14]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Madeline Groves Bio". SwimSwam. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "North Sydney Pool Summer Swim Series Media Guide" (PDF). Swimming Australia. 28–30 January 2011. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Madeline Groves". Official Site of the 2016 Australian Olympic Team. Australian Olympic Committee. Archived from the original on 25 February 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  4. ^ "Young swim stars awarded elite scholarship to Bond University". Bond University. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  5. ^ a b "Groves not daunted by Olympic dream". Official Site of the 2016 Australian Olympic Team. Australian Olympic Committee. Archived from the original on 26 August 2016. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  6. ^ "2016 Hancock Prospecting Australian Champs – 7/04/2016 to 14/04/2016". SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre. Archived from the original on 12 June 2016. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  7. ^ "Madeline Groves". Archived from the original on 23 November 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  8. ^ "Event 429 AUG 2015 – Women's 4 × 100m Medley Relay Result". FINA. Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  9. ^ "Australia wins gold in 4 × 100m freestyle relay at world swimming championships in Russia". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 3 August 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  10. ^ "2016 Australian Olympic Swimming Team selected". Official Site of the 2016 Australian Olympic Team. Australian Olympic Committee. Archived from the original on 11 October 2016. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  11. ^ "Women's 100m Butterfly". Rio Olympics. Archived from the original on 1 September 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  12. ^ "Women's 200m Butterfly Schedule & Results – Olympic Swimming". Rio Olympics. Archived from the original on 22 September 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  13. ^ "Groves renews attack on Australian swimming culture". Reuters. 11 June 2021.
  14. ^ "Australian swimmer Groves pulls out of Games trials, citing 'perverts'". Reuters. 10 June 2021.

External links

Media related to Madeline Groves at Wikimedia Commons