PUBLISHED THU 23 FEB 2017 - Diving Australia

There was a moment during the Rio Olympic Games that Australian diver, Maddison Keeney, had an epiphany of sorts.

It wasn’t when she was standing on the end of the 3-metre board, staring down at murky green pool water that she had been assured was perfectly safe, despite taking on the appearance of a jungle swamp.

It wasn’t even the moment she and partner Anabelle Smith clinched a thrilling springboard synchro bronze medal, continuing Australia’s incredible run of diving success at the Olympic Games.

It was more a realisation that, in the past, she had probably been too hard on herself.

“I think it put a lot of things into perspective for me, especially considering it was my first Games,” Keeney said this week.

“I’ve always felt like I need to succeed in every moment then and there, but the Games made me realise that everything I do, and have done up until this point, has only been a stepping stone rather than my end goal.

“So I think it has allowed me to be able to experience my training and other competitions differently.”

Keeney will get a chance to put her new thinking to the test when she joins a seven-strong Australian team in China next week for their first FINA Diving World Cup of 2017.

It will also be her first step towards next year’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, an event where Keeney definitely has some unfinished business.

The Perth 20-year-old, who now calls Brisbane home, struggled with nerves in Glasgow in 2014, and it cost her at least one gold medal.

Now the road ahead has become much clearer, Keeney can’t wait to put it into practice.

“For this year I want to start cracking the top three in my individual event, but its also a year for review and change,” she said.

“We have a new coach coming in to freshen the program up, and I want to solidify a lot of the things I learnt last year and do some competitions that I’m happy with.”

Those who have known of Keeney’s potential for some time saw her performance in Rio as a reward for the many hours and the sacrifices she had made to become a world-class performer.

She made the difficult decision to leave family and friends in Perth to relocate to Diving Australia’s High Performance Program in Brisbane, where she is also working feverishly to complete her university studies, hopefully this year.

And while she may have had moments where she wondered if it was worth it, her experience in Rio convinced her it was.

“The Olympics were far better and amazing than I could ever have imagined, despite there being a bit of negative media coverage leading up to and during the event,” she said.

“It felt like we were in our own world in the Games. Its definitely an experience I am so grateful to have had.”

She also got to experience the post-Games emotions that can become problematic for many athletes.

“I had quite a bit of time off afterwards, but I was straight back to university when I got back,” she said.

“It was good to just live a normal life for a couple of weeks and just relax after a hectic six months. When I did go back to training, the first few weeks were okay but after that I wanted to be on holiday again!

“The post olympic crash is definitely real, so I had to make sure I didn’t get totally overwhelmed by it all.”

More proof, if was even needed, that the 20-year-old Keeney is a much different athlete than the 16-year-old who first stepped out in a major competition four years ago.