Tara Llanes

Tara Janelle Llanes (born November 28, 1976, in West Covina, California United States) is a Bicycle Motocross (BMX) racer and a wheelchair basketball player whose prime competitive years were from 1990 to 1993.

She became a champion Mountain Bike (MTB) racer.

She later played wheelchair tennis and wheelchair basketball for Canada.

Her surname is pronounced "Yaw-ness" but for obvious reasons it is often mispronounced "lanes" as in the type of division of a pathway.

Note: Professional first are on the national level unless otherwise indicated.

In 1993 while still racing BMX for Haro Bicycles, she asked that sponsor for a mountain bike and to go to a mountain bike race.

She liked it and soon transitioned from BMX to MTB, with cross country Dual Slalom and after Dual Slalom was abolished by NORBA the 4-Cross Downhill events.

During her mountain bike years she acquired the nickname of "T", the first letter of her given name.

Started racing: According to her website In 1993 at 16 years old.

She asked the BMX team manager of Haro Designs who was sponsoring her repeatedly to try it and he finally relented.

Retired: Originally in 1995 to focus on Mountain Bike racing full time.

Unlike in BMX she turned pro in 1996.

She almost immediately started doing well on the pro circuit but it was not until 1999 that she won her first title.

In the now discontinued Dual Slalom down hill event of that year's ESPN Winter Extreme Games (also known Winter "X" Games), Tara took a Gold medal.

She would go on to win a further 14 medals in the next seven years of her career including five championships.

During this time she also suffered numerous injuries including punctured lungs and a broken foot.

According to her Mountain Bike Action May 2000 interview it was a 2nd place in Junior Women in Dual Slalom at the 1993 NORBA Finals at Mammouth Mountain Resort in Mammoth Lakes, California.

She restarted in late 2006 with an eye toward making the 2008 Olympic Team.

See "First professional race result".

According to Llanes USA Cycling asked her tor restart her BMX career:

"'USA Cycling approached me and said 'Now that it's an Olympic event do think (sic) you'd want to try try (sic) and compete...' and I said no. They kept talking to me, talking to me, until I entered a race and got fourth with the fastest girls that were there. So that had me rethinking things.'"

Then in September 2007, the most devastating of all; a crash that left her paralyzed from the waist down.

She is in rigorous rehabilitation and despite physician's diagnosis of her never being able to walk again, she is determined to not only walk again, but to return to riding a bicycle and even competing.

The last chapter of Llanes's racing career is probably not already written in the face of such determination.

but in a May 2007 Mountain Bike Action interview it was Haro Bicycles that asked her to give it a try.

Sub Discipline(s): Down Hill, 4-Cross, Dual Slalom and Cross Country

First race result: According to Llanes's website.

First in Junior Women in Dual Slalom at the Big Bear Lake, California.

However, an apparent career-ending injury in MTB eliminated that possibility for 2008.

She has however, stated her goal to be to return to racing competition.

*In the NBL Junior Women; No comparable level existed in the ABA.

**In the NBL it was/is Supergirls/Elite Women; in the ABA it is Pro Girls.

Note: This listing only denotes the racer's primary sponsors.

At any given time a racer could have numerous ever changing co-sponsors.

Primary sponsorships can be verified by BMX press coverage and sponsor's advertisements at the time in question.

When possible exact dates are used.

Note: Listed are District, State/Provincial/Department, Regional, National and International titles.

Only sanctioning bodies that were active during the racer's career are listed.

National Bicycle League (NBL)

American Bicycle Association (ABA)