No matter how challenging life gets, or the severity of the adversities that come her way, Llanes bounces back, optimistic, energetic, and as competitive as ever.
“I think it’s just kind of in my DNA. I just love to compete,” said Llanes, shortly after her Wheelchair Basketball Canada team had lost a hard fought, opening match, during February’s Toronto Cup Wheelchair Basketball Tournament.
She continued, “Chess, checkers, it doesn’t matter. I want to compete and I want to win.”
Llanes raced bicycles professionally for 15 years, starting with BMX bikes, then transitioning to mountain bikes.
During the 2007 ‘Jeep King of the Mountain’ race in Vail, Colorado, Llanes had a tragic accident, resulting in the paralysis of her lower body.
Llanes transitioned from racing two-wheelers globally to riding three-wheeled adaptive mountain bikes, eventually selling them, and helping to design a safe trail for disabled riders, in British Columbia.
Tara Llanes keeps Reinventing Herself
Question: “Which did you enjoy more and why? Cutting the ribbon during the official opening ceremony for the opening of Spine Trail in September 2017, or actually riding down the trail and providing feedback to the builder?” Llanes: “Just to be able to help in the process of making the trails safe, making it fun, making it interactive.
“You know, it’s just such an emotional thing, knowing that years before that, before adaptive mountain biking was really a thing, and selling adapted mountain bikes, sort of having this ‘If you build it, they will come mentality.’ ” Llanes began filling a need for other disabled individuals, who also wished to lead an active lifestyle. When they saw her riding her imported adapted mountain bike, they wanted one too.
https://www.tarallanesindustries.com
Llanes’ business had its best sales during the pandemic. She shed light on why this happened.
“I think everything was closed down and people were getting grants and/or people were deciding to spend money on bikes and adapted bikes because they wanted to be outside, because everything was closed,” she recounted.
She continued, “Able-bodied, like two-wheeled bikes, adapted bikes [sales], they were through the roof. People just needed to get outside.”
Return to Competitive Sports: Wheelchair Tennis and Wheelchair Basketball
After a long hiatus from competitive sports, Llanes began playing wheelchair tennis. She excelled in her new sport, competing in both singles and doubles.
Llanes tried wheelchair basketball, mainly to increase her speed on the tennis court. However, she fell in love with the sport, and eventually switched, returning to an adapted form of the game that she played, while in elementary and secondary school.
Llanes became a valuable member of the Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball team.
Training for the Delayed Tokyo Paralympics
While preparing for the Tokyo Paralympics, COVID-19 restrictions threw a huge monkey wrench, in the team’s progress, since they were forced to train apart from each other.
Llanes made the best of this bad situation, working with her coach, on an individualized program, to improve her skills.
“There was one thing my coach really wanted me to do and that was to work on my hand speed, to be quicker,” she stated, during a 2021 Zoom interview.
“Being able to really get my hands forward and back, forward and back, like really quick rotations,” she detailed.
“So it was a bit of a blessing in disguise, because we figured out how to set up my chair, so that the two big wheels are off the ground, so when I push there’s absolutely no resistance. I’m not moving anywhere.”
The pandemic delay of the Tokyo Games, enabled Llanes to make significant speed gains, before she hit the court, with her team.
“Had I not had that timeframe, I don’t know that we would have ever discovered being able to train like that, and I would have just been on the court. And on the court, there’s always some resistance because your wheels are touching the ground.”
No matter how bitter, or the quantity of lemons that life throws in her direction, Llanes bounces back, optimistic, energetic, and as competitive as ever.
She had planned to retire after Tokyo, her first Paralympics. However, competing in empty arenas left a bad taste in her mouth.
A Tale of Two Games: Tokyo and Paris Paralympics
“I thought Tokyo might be my last Paralympics but this is not the experience that I wanted,” recalled Llanes. “So I continued on to Paris. I thought, well it’s only three years instead of four.”
Llanes described some of the key differences between her Tokyo and Paris Paralympics experiences.
“In Tokyo, we were delayed a year because of COVID, and then finally got there. It was hard to think that you worked that hard to get there, the event was sold out and then there's nobody in the stands,” she recalled.
“The Japanese people built these beautiful stadiums and beautiful venues and then no one was there. That was hard, because there's nobody yelling and there's no energy. You had to bring your own energy.”
Llanes contrasted playing in empty venues with the energy that she felt at the Paris Games.
“When we rolled into the stadium, there was a men’s game playing. It was sold out. I mean, people in the rafters, 13,000 fans,” Llanes shared excitedly.
“I can’t really describe to you how loud it was in there. You couldn’t hear the person next to you. You had to yell in order to have a conversation,” she recalled.
She continued, “I got chills. I just I wanted to cry.”
Llanes Transitions to Coaching
In January 2025, Llanes made another pivot. She started coaching wheelchair basketball.
“Last January, I had to coach four camps. I was the head coach, so I had to come up with everything,” she explained.
“I had help from mentors and other coaches, but to sort of be the one running it, just gives you a very different perspective, and now I’m not so hard on coaches,” Llanes said.
She elaborated further on her transition from player to coach.
“It’s hard to look at the players that you have, the lineups that you have, figuring out strategies, figuring out the ways in which people have advantages on your team or disadvantages, and then the planning around it,” said Llanes.
She further broke down her coaching strategy.
When you’re trying to plan a season outline and trying to figure out, this is our goal. How do we work back from that and then how do we know what things we’re weak at and how do we want to get better? Llanes shared.
She continued, “Then what drills do we need to do, to make that happen? It’s a lot, but I enjoy the challenge, for sure, and I’m glad to be doing it.”
As a coach, Llanes draws heavily on her playing experience, when working with other high-performance, wheelchair basketball athletes.
“I very much like playing physical, when I’m on court. I think I probably, for better or for worse, take that to my coaching,” she said.
Llanes further expanded, “I actually feel like I’ve almost dialed it back a bit on coaching. There’s a lot of times where I want to go in the huddle and be more intense, but I’m like, “Let’s massage this a little bit. Let’s be a little bit more choosy with how we’re going to approach this.”
Her team defeated won the event, defeating Variety Village’s team in the finals.
The Resilience of High-Performance Para Athletes
Llanes never accepts defeat, in sport or in life.
“I’ve had many different injuries, many concussions, when I was racing mountain bikes, broken collar bones, blown out knees, punctured lungs. And every single time, I was like, ‘Alright, now this is a challenge. Now, my next step is, how am I going to get back?’ ” she shared.
Llanes traces her athleticism, champion’s mindset and love of sports to both parents.
“Both my parents were athletes. My mom was a very competitive softball player. My dad played a few different sports,” stated Llanes.
She attributes her resilience to her mom’s parenting.
Llanes shared, “My dad passed when I was four. So, it’ s just my mom and I. She just taught me to be a strong, independent woman, and I think that has really helped me throughout life.”
“After breaking my back, I had to be resilient. It’s interesting. A lot of people will come up to you and say, ‘If that happened to me, I don’t know what I would do.’ “
“But you don’t have a choice. So, when people say that, I’m like, yeah, I would have thought the same thing, but I’m not going to just lay in a hospital bed my whole life. Right?”
“You figure it out. You start to find what works for you. And that’s what you have to do. You have to just keep your mindset focused and like little wins, little wins, little wins. And then all of a sudden, it goes from here to there.
“It’s interesting because every single person here, you could go have a conversation with, and their story would blow your mind. Just how people ended up in a chair,” she confidently asserted, regarding her fellow competitors, at the Toronto Cup Wheelchair Basketball Tournament.
“Some of the stories I’ve heard, like my jaw’s on the ground,” said Llanes. “The amount of resilience that every single person here has, from whatever disability that they have, they’ve had to figure life out in a totally different way and manoeuvre through life and navigate it in a different way that works for them.
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