Angela Madsen
4400 kilometers of rowing: Paralyzed athlete dies in attempt to set a record in the Pacific
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Angela Madsen wanted to row from Los Angeles to Honolulu
© Jeff Gritchen / Picture Alliance
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Paraplegic Angela Madsen had set five world records for ocean rowing. Now she has died trying to row from Los Angeles to Honolulu alone.
What happened in the last minutes of the life of Angela Madsen, 60, can only be guessed at. In the middle of the Pacific, about halfway from Los Angeles to Honolulu, the disabled extreme athlete wanted to get into the water from her rowboat for a repair. In any case, according to her wife Debra, she announced this on Sunday morning (local time) a week ago via satellite phone. After several hours of no contact with the rower and because the GPS data indicated that Madsen’s boat was floating through the sea, Debra finally alarmed the US Coast Guard.
On Monday, last week, during an overflight, she discovered how Madsen was lifeless floating alongside her boat. Apparently the paraplegic athlete was no longer able to climb back on board. Her sixth attempt at a record ends tragically.
Angela Madsen wanted to row 4400 kilometers across the sea
Madsen’s goal was to be the first paraplegic and the oldest woman to row from Los Angeles to Honolulu alone – more than 4,400 kilometers across the Pacific. According to her homepage, she alternately wanted to row for two hours and then pause for two hours.
She started her athlete career with the US Marines, where she had an accident while training basketball. A failed intervertebral disc operation put her in a wheelchair in 1993. In 2002 she entered the US rowing world championships for the disabled for the first time. Madsen was also at the Paralympics 2008, 2012 and 2016 according to their homepage competed in rowing and athletics and even won a bronze medal in javelin throw in 2012. Since 2007, she has raided several oceans. The “Guinness Book of Records” runs under her name five records in long-distance rowing on.
“If so, she wanted to die like this”
The three to four month rowing trip from LA to Honolulu was to be her sixth record. “Rowing an ocean alone was her biggest goal,” Madsen’s wife Debra and filmmaker Soraya Simi write in the Notice of death on the homepage “Rowoflife.org”. Madsen knew the risks better than anyone else and was ready to take them: “Because being at sea made her happier than anything else. She kept telling us that if she tried to die she would die that way wanted to.”
Have supporters set up a donation pageto finance the transportation of Madsen’s body back to California. Accordingly, a German freighter recovered Madsen and then continued on to Tahiti. From there, Madsen is to be brought back to the USA. According to the supporters, your boat is still floating in the Pacific.
Swell: Rowoflife.org, “CNN”, USRowing.org, “Guiness Book of Records”.
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