Heiner was born in
Shellharbour, New South Wales on 15 May 1987. She took up running seriously in 2002; as a 17-year-old, she represented Australia in the
1500 metres at the
2004 World Junior Championships in
Grosseto, but was eliminated in the heats. At the
Commonwealth Youth Games in December 2004 she won gold in the
3000 metres and bronze in the
1500 metres. She studied
pharmacy and did not return to the track after recovering from the injury. She joined the training group of coach Adam Didyk; her first race back was in January 2014, after a hiatus of almost eight years. She was briefly the 2015 world leader in the 3000 m steeplechase after winning at the
Melbourne Track Classic in a personal best 9:31.03. She improved her times further at the
Diamond League meetings in
Doha (6th in 9:28.41) and
Rome (5th in 9:21.56); the latter time ranked her second behind
Donna MacFarlane on the Australian all-time list. She placed seventh in the steeplechase final with a personal best of 9:20:38 and tenth in the 5000m final with a personal best of 15:04.05. In 2017, Heiner moved away from the steeplechase towards the 10,000m. She ran 31.41 to qualify for the IAAF World Championships (London), where she represented Australia in both the 5000m and 10,000m. In 2018, despite struggling with injury, Heiner was selected for her second Commonwealth Games, this time in the 5000m and 10,000m. Her long lasted hamstring injury required surgery, and was finally operated in March 2019 by Finnish surgeons Lasse Lempainen and
Sakari Orava, in
Turku, Finland. Madeline retired from competition in 2020, returning her focus to her pharmacy career. After first spending three years as the senior custodial pharmacist for St Vincent's hospital, she now leads the Victorian Poisons Information Centre. ==References==