POV podcast transcript: Tara Llanes

Transcript: Tara Llanes on Player's Own Voice podcast

March 28  2023 eps 6-18

Anastasia:   Tara Llanes says sports is her identity.

Growing up, she loved basketball. Then BMX.  Then professional Mountain biking.

Even when a crash left her paralyzed from the waist down, the competitive fire within kept burning.

She took up Wheelchair Tennis.  And then, to boost her performance on the court,  Wheelchair Basketball.

Which brought her back to her first love in sport,

and brings us up to speed with one of the grittiest competitors you'll ever meet.

[music]

It's Player's Own Voice.

I'm Anastasia Bucsis.

Buddy. It's great to see you.

Tara Llanes:   Yeah, it's good to see you, too.

Anastasia:   I'm wearing this Cher shirt because I think the only person aside from Cher to reinvent themselves as much as she has is you.

Tara Llanes:  Wow!That's saying something..

Anastasia:  Yeah, I know. And I'm a big Cher fan.  First love basketball, then what? BMX  then mountain biking. And you're back to basketball. That's a pretty significant journey in sport.

Tara Llanes:   Oh, God. Yeah. It's kind of it's been one big like cycle of just craziness and not really knowing where things were going to go and obviously. But yeah, I mean, I've  been really fortunate to play sports and compete in sports for such a long time. It's kind of my identity. That's where I feel like I belong.

Anastasia:   How have you maintained that mental edge, let alone physical? How do you just keep hungry for competition?

Tara Llanes:   I don't know. I think it's kind of sometimes in your DNA. I think sometimes you're just... You want to be competitive and you want to win and kind of at all costs, you know? And I think it takes a toll sometimes on friendships and