This Inspirational Athlete appeared on Not The Footy Show and was one of our most memorable guests. Fortunately we have tracked down the interview from 2012 and are able to share it with you again here.
Angela Madsen was born in Long Beach, California in 1960 and was educated in Ohio. Her High School classmates voted her the most likely to become an Olympian, due to her outstanding prowess as a basketballer. She was a stand out player and had attended Olympic training camps. However in high school she fell pregnant, which impacted on her dreams of a university Athletics scholarship.
Her family had a military history so she decided that she too would follow that path. She was told she would never make it, and this was one of the first times she was to prove people wrong.
Her parents looked after her daughter while she went through basic training. She proved the doubters wrong and was accepted in the Marine Corps and at 19 years of age became a military Police Officer. The Marines provided a home for her and her daughter.
It was not long before she joined the women’s basketball team, playing at centre. Competing at the Marine Corps West Coast Regional Basketball Tournament she stood out, and was then scouted by the women’s Marine Corps team.
In 1980 while training on the basketball court she fell. Unfortunately other players also fell and landed awkwardly on her back. She had two ruptured discs as a result. She was discharged from the military, which was devastating, however she found work as a car mechanic, while at the same time studying to become a mechanical engineer. Prior to starting a new job in this field she opted to have surgery on her back to fix the problem that had been deteriorating over the years.
As she explains in the attached interview she underwent surgery on her back, but unfortunately a string of errors on the operating table resulted in her suffering a L1 incomplete spinal cord injury and paraplegia.
Understandably she came out of hospital, angry, depressed and suicidal. She applied for military benefits, but the process was not a fast one. She was now homeless and spent three months living in the car park at Disneyland. Her valuables she locked in a locker at the park and slept in her wheelchair at the bus stop.
She could have returned home to Ohio but wanted to stay in California and eventually found some assistance through the Disabled American Veterans (DAV); a national organization dedicated to helping disabled veterans and their families. The DVA found her a rundown apartment on the first floor in a bad part of town, while she waited for her army benefits to kick in. At that point, she was only receiving $78 a month from the VA. Compensation for her injury would end up taking three decades from the time of her accident to come through!
Amazingly it would be another accident that would help change the course of her life. One day her wheelchair got stuck in a crack, and she fell headfirst onto a set of train tracks. Luckily two passersby came to her aid. At the time she thought that she had seriously damaged her neck, but as feeling returned to her hands the relief swept over her, and she realised that she had to make the most of what she had, rather than focussing on what she had lost.
Thanks to the Disabled American Veterans she returned to sport, and basketball. In 1998 she was convinced to give rowing a go. Her height, she is 6ft 1in (185cm) was one of the reasons she was approached, along with her strength.
Although she had never rowed before, in 2000 she was selected as part of the USA Adaptive rowing team. She would then claim gold in four consecutive world championships from 2003-06. In 2008, she earned a spot on Team USA to participate in the inaugural rowing event at the Beijing Paralympics. It may not have been the sport she dreamt of participating in but Angela’s Olympic dream had become a reality. Sadly she missed out on a medal by the smallest of margins just 0.7 seconds.
In February 2008, she along with a French amputee took part in the Woodvale Challenge-2007 Atlantic Rowing Race. Despite neither speaking the other’s language and after 67 days at sea, their two-person boat completed the nearly 3,000-mile race. They crossed the line in eighth place out of 13 boats.
In 2009, she was part of an eight member crew that rowed on a 58-day journey across 3,600 miles of the Indian Ocean from Australia to Mauritius. It earned Madsen the title of the first disabled woman to row across two oceans; that was when we spoke to her on the show.
She was also part of a rowing team that circumnavigated the coast of Great Britain. In 2011, she was back on the waves of the Atlantic this time as skipper of a crew of 16 that travelled from Morocco to Barbados in 47 days on the first ocean rowing catamaran.
At the London Paralympics Madsen was there competing in track and field. She took part in the shot putt (F54-56) and javelin (F54/55/56). She finished fifth in the Javelin and won a silver medal in the Shot Putt. She also competed in Rio, but failed to medal in both events.
She has also overcome breast cancer. She has been featured in the Guinness World Records, having set six records. Two of those being the first woman to row across the Indian Ocean and the first disabled person to row across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
In November 2014, Madsen received the Athletes in Excellence Award from The Foundation for Global Sports Development. This award was given in recognition of her community service efforts and work with youth.
This is the story of a truly Inspirational woman, who came close to hitting rock bottom before finding a positive outlook. Since that moment she has never looked back. Angela’s appearance on Not The Footy Show was a very popular one, and had an impact on many listeners. As she said then she does not see herself as disabled, but as differently abled!
If you would like to hear from her click on the link here. (Sadly the quality of this recording has diminished slightly over time, not sure why).
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