Angela Madsen was an American Paralympian sportswoman in both rowing and track and field. In a long career, Madsen moved from race rowing to ocean challenges before switching in 2011 to athletics, winning a bronze medal in the shot put at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. Madsen and teammate Helen Taylor were the first women to row across the Indian Ocean. She died in June 2020 while attempting a solo row from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
Most of Madsen's immediate family were military, so when her brothers told her she "couldn't make it as a marine", it made her determined to join. She enlisted in the Marines, leaving her daughter with her parents until she completed basic training. After passing training, the Marine Corps provided Madsen with a home for her and her daughter. She was sent to Fort McClellan in Alabama to train as a military police officer and her first duty station was at the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, near Irvine, California. At El Toro, she joined the women's basketball team, at center, and when the team competed at the Marine Corps West Coast Regional Basketball Tournament, Madsen was scouted by the women's Marine Corps team.
In 1980, at her first Marine Corps basketball training session, she fell on the court and another player stepped on her back, rupturing two discs in her spine. This in turn led Madsen to undergo surgery to her back, but a string of errors resulted in her suffering an L1 incomplete spinal cord injury and paraplegia. The US military refused to pay for Madsen's medical bills following the accident, and, in the dispute that followed, Madsen lost her home and her marriage fell apart. She fell into depression and became homeless, sometimes sleeping in her wheelchair in front of Disneyland.
Paralympic career
Madsen's life turned around when, after attending a National Veterans Games, she was introduced to wheelchair basketball. She took up the sport and began to rebuild her life. The defining point in her recovery came after she fell onto subway tracks in San Francisco and feared that she had broken her neck. This event made her reassess her life as a disabled person, and she decided to live her life to the fullest. She wrote an autobiography, Rowing Against the Wind, published in 2014.
Rowing career
Madsen was introduced to rowing after her wheelchair basketball sponsor invited her to a learn-to-row event in Dana Point. She found she was a natural at the sport and liked that she did not need to use a wheelchair to participate. In 2002, the International Rowing Federation added adaptive rowing to the World Rowing Championships, and Madsen, classified as a trunk-and-arms competitor, was selected to race at the 2002 World Rowing Championships. She finished in silver place in the single sculls. In the next three years she entered each of the World Championships, winning the gold medal in the doubles sculls in every tournament. While a competitive rower, Madsen was also enjoying ocean-rowing events, and from her home in California she had access to the Pacific. She began rowing between Newport, California, and Dana Point, and began entering 20-mile races. After Madsen met Louisville Adaptive Rowing Program volunteer Tori Murden, who was the first American to row the Atlantic solo, she became inspired to undertake an ocean journey. Over the following years Madsen took on multiple ocean treks. In 2007, she became the first woman with a disability to row across the Atlantic Ocean. Two years later she became, along with Helen Taylor, one of the first two women to row across the Indian Ocean. Madsen was also part of a team that circumnavigated Great Britain. In 2008, Madsen represented the United States at her first Summer Paralympics, competing at the 2008 Games in Beijing in the mixed double sculls with William Brown, though they did not progress through the repechage and finished seventh.
Athletics career
Madsen made her first appearance for the United States as a F56 track-and-field athlete in 2011. Her results leading up to the games qualified her for the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, competing in the shot put and javelin throw. She finished fifth in the javelin, but a throw of 8.88 metres was enough to win her a bronze medal in the shot put. She also competed for the United States at the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha, and in 2016, at the Boiling Point Track Classic at the University of Windsor in Canada, Madsen won her shot put event with a distance of 9.43, setting a new world record. Also in July 2016 Madsen was announced as a member of the US team to compete at Rio in the 2016 Summer Paralympics, where she finished eighth in the women's shot put F56/57, and seventh in the women's javelin throw F55/F56. In November 2014, Madsen received the Athletes in Excellence Award from The Foundation for Global Sports Development in recognition of her community service efforts and work with youth. She held six Guinness World Records and was working toward another at the time of her death.
Personal life
Madsen came out as gay in 1981, while in the US military. She met her wife, Debra, in 2006. In 2015 she was a grand marshal for the Long Beach Pride Parade. She was found dead nearly halfway into her solo row from Los Angeles to Honolulu on June 22, 2020. The journey was being filmed by Soraya Simi.
