The gruelling event, which involves a crew of four people rowing around the British Isles, takes place in June this year and Madison is planning to take on the key role of navigator for her team called the SeaGals.

A Guinness world record holder, Madsen was the first woman to row across the Indian Ocean and the first female athlete with a disability to row across two oceans.

She is a seven-time adaptive rowing national team member and is founder of the California Adaptive Rowing Programme with a level III coaching certification from US Rowing to add to her list of credentials.

Madsen, who was left paralysed in 1993 after a routine operation to cure a back problem went horribly wrong, competed in rowing at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics while her other sports include wheelchair basketball, kayaking and surfing.

Madsen, who has also suffered breast cancer which required a bilateral mastectomy, has also surfed in the World Championships of Surfing in Biarritz, France in both 2006 and 2007.

In February of 2003, the Amateur Athletic Foundation named Madsen as a recipient of the Women Who Inspire Us Award and in September of the same year, she received the Leo Reilly, Jr. Award for outstanding spirit and determination.

Madsen is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a life member of both the Disabled American Veterans and the Paralysed Veterans of America.

The Anglo American Boat Race, though, represents one of Madsen's most difficult challenges and she as well as her SeaGals team are braced to take on their all-male crew competitors.

The race originated in 1872 when the Atlanta Rowing Club of New York posted a challenge to the London Rowing Club to row a four-oared race on the Thames.

The challenge was accepted and the Anglo American Boat Race was born.

In 2010 The Anglo American Boat Race Club has been designed with the objective to re-launch one of the world’s most prestigious and exciting rowing competitions and to captivate the American and British imagination by rowing unsupported around the UK.

This first challenge in its new format is called GB Row 2010.

The race begins when the flag drops on June 1 at Tower Bridge on the River Thames in Central London and there will be no further assistance for boats and crews in their attempt to beat the current world record of 26 days 21 hours and 14 minutes which was set by an Army team in 2005.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]