Name: Cheri Madsen
Sport: Track and Field
Event(s): 100-meter, 200-meter, 400-meter
Classification: T54
Height: 4-11
DOB: 9/27/1976
Birthplace: Omaha, Neb.
Hometown: Nebraska City, Neb.
High School: Nebraska City Senior High School (Nebraska City, Neb.) ‘95
Paralympic Experience
- Four-time Paralympian (1996, 2000, 2016, 2020); Ten-time Paralympic medalist (2 golds, 5 silvers, 3 bronzes)
- Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, silver (400-meter), bronze (100-meter)
- Paralympic Games Rio 2016, silver (400-meter), 5th (100-meter)
- Paralympic Games Sydney 2000, gold (100-meter, 400-meter), silver (200-meter), 4th (800-meter)
- Paralympic Games Atlanta 1996, silver (100-meter, 200-meter), bronze (400-meter, 800-meter)
- Olympic Games Atlanta 1996, bronze (800-meter exhibition race)
World Championship Experience
- Most recent: 2019 – bronze (100-meter), 5th (400-meter)
- Years of participation: 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019
- Medals: 7 (3 silver, 4 bronze)
- Silver – 2017 (100-meter, 200-meter); 2015 (200-meter)
- Bronze – 2019 (100m), 2017 (400m), 2013 (200m, 400m)
- Bronze – 2019 (100-meter); 2017 (400-meter); 2013 (200-meter, 400-meter)
Personal:
Daughter of Mario and Mary Becerra...Mother to Reese and Malayna Madsen...Married Eric Madsen on June 2, 2001...Was left paralyzed by an unknown virus at age three...Began wheelchair racing in 1994 and qualified for her first Paralympic Games just two years later in Atlanta...First Native American female to win an Olympic exhibition bronze medal...Her 1996 Olympic and Paralympic pursuits were chronicled in a Nebraska Educational Television documentary entitled “The Cheri Becerra Story: God Made Her for This Sport”...Left racing for 13 years, returning to competition for the 2013 world championships in memory of her younger brother, Mario III, and their father, Mario Jr., who were killed in a car-train crash in 2007...Hobbies include scrapbooking, reading and watching her daughters compete in sports.
