From a leg brace to grand final MVP in eight days: Maddison Levi’s miracle return

She is already regarded as one of Australia’s most dynamic female athletes, and is without peer in all the footballing codes as far as try-scoring ability.

But you can now add “toughest” to the list for sevens star Maddi Levi, too, after her remarkable return from a serious knee injury in the space of eight days helped the Australian women’s sevens team beat arch-rivals New Zealand and claim the 2025-26 World Seven Series title.

Needing to beat the Kiwis in Bordeaux on Monday morning – in the last of three “Grand Final” tournaments – to claim the crown, the Australians beat New Zealand 26-19, and Levi’s two tries saw her named player of the final.

Tries and MVP awards are now standard for Levi, but the 24-year-old’s road to the final was anything but routine, having been limping around in a leg brace just eight days earlier following a painful knee injury suffered at the penultimate World Seven Series tournament in Spain.

Speaking from France on Tuesday, Levi revealed she had suffered a grade two medial ligament tear in her left knee and had barely run throughout the week leading up to the Bordeaux finale.

She was still selected by coach Tim Walsh, but in a calculated strategy, Levi sat out the opening two days, and only laced up her boots for the semi-final and final on Sunday (local time).

“I probably didn’t really get the hope I would actually play until the Sunday morning,” Levi said.

“We were just playing by ear and assessing the stability of my knee, and to see if all my other muscles were still firing. I did a grade two MCL, so I was very lucky that it wasn’t fully ruptured.”

Levi suffered the injury off the ball against the USA in the pool stages of the tournament in Valladolid, and watched on in a leg brace as her Australian teammates went on to win the final.

“It was pretty sore, and I guess I was in a bit of shock,” she said. “But we got some scans and then started to have a few chats.”

Walsh, Levi and medical staff weighed up the pros and cons of her being selected in the squad for Bordeaux. Though Levi said she didn’t want to be selfish and take a spot of a fully fit squad member, it was decided to roll the dice and see if their key try-scorer could be strapped up and play at some stage.

“On Friday [in pool rounds] it was still a bit unstable and if I went out, there was probably a chance of me actually doing worse damage, and my main focus was to make sure that we don’t make things worse – obviously next year is an Olympic qualifying year and I would take [missing] one tournament over a six-month injury.”

Levi warmed up again on