Photo by www.monicabascio.com

Before becoming a member of the U.S. Ski Team, Bascio excelled, and still does, in the sport of hand-cycling.  After winning the 2002 World Time Trial Championships in Altenstadt, Germany, the pinnacle in hand-cycling, it was announced there would be no women's hand-cycling contested held in Athens.  Luckily for Bascio, however, she discovered Nordic skiing. 

After a skiing accident in 1992, Bascio was paralyzed from the waist down.  Living in California at the time, she was first introduced to hand-cycling recreationally.  It was a way for her to be able to spend time with her husband and friends all year round.  It was a short-lived activity of simple leisure however, as a more serious mindset began to take over.

"The competitiveness is almost an addictive sort of thing for me," said Bascio.   "Initially I wasn't that competitive and I find that I get more so.  I don't know if that's with age or experience.  It's quite a rush to see what you can do and do your best, that's what racing is about."

Her first experience with Nordic skiing was neither for hobby nor competition, but rather for training purposes. 

"It was really when I moved to Colorado four years ago that I was looking for something that I could [use to] train for endurance in the winter," said Bascio.  "That is how Nordic started for me." 

Four years and more than 2000 hours of training later, Bascio is headed to Torino for her first Paralympic experience.  But by no means is this a recreational experience for her.

"I dream to medal for sure," she said.  "I am not going just for the fun of it; I am going to do my best and to win."

And now because of her competitiveness, combined with her aspirations and goals, Bascio began to realize exactly what it takes to be an elite athlete.  She made the commitment to train for Torino and with it came years filled with over 500 hours of training, long daily drives and a very understanding boss. 

"It's a huge time commitment.  It's a huge chunk out of your life," Bascio said.  "I live about an hour from the place I train, so I drive up there five-six times a week.  My employer that I work for one time a week has been very flexible and supportive of disabled sport.  It's trying, you know?  The drive gets old, looking for sponsors to cover equipment costs becomes difficult.  That's definitely the exhausting, unglamorous part of competing at the elite level, but you have to do that to survive." 

And if that wasn't enough, she has come to the conclusion that her training hours need to increase in order to continue competing at the international level, something that friend and teammate Candace Cable helped to point out. 

"She really enlightened me on the commitment to training and the developmental steps that I didn't realize last year and am realizing them this year," Bascio said.  "I'm realizing now, certainly with Nordic skiing that it [500 hours per year of training] is not enough.  It's not enough to be competitive at the elite international level." 

She is certainly no stranger to success, regardless of her thoughts on increasing her training.  In cycling she is a 13-time U.S. National Champion, a four-time winner of Sadler's Ultra Challenge, and placed fourth and fifth at the 2005 IPC European Championships road race and time trial, respectively.  She also just committed to another year of hand-cycling, and the training of course begins right after the 2006 Paralympic Winter Games.  With only four years of competitive skiing under her belt, Bascio has three 10k fourth place IPC world cup finishes including a second place finish at the Orford World Cup cross country Ski Final in 2004.

But in hearing Bascio outline her hard work, large time commitments and less than pleasurable drives to do her weight training, it was hard to not notice that she simply wouldn't stop smiling.  Her descriptions were in no way complaints, as she genuinely has a love for what she does.

"I love the adrenaline of the sport, and I guess that's just the competitiveness that is growing and growing," said Bascio.  "And really, the opportunity to travel and to see how other cultures embrace disability and how they adjust to it and how others live, I find particularly fascinating and I feel blessed and lucky to experience all that, and those are definitely the upsides of it.  I wouldn't trade that for anything and so it's working for me right now."

Working it is.  Competing in six events in Torino, look for Bascio to be in possible medal contention in the 10k cross-country race.  And look for the joy on her face as she competes in one of her favorite events, biathlon.  "I'm definetly looking forward to the biathlon - only because it's fun, it's a challenge and I like a challenge - and [competeting in] the 10k cross country," she said.  "Those would probably be the two chances I have to do my best." 

Regardless of where Bascio finishes her races, don't expect her to give up on or off the course.  "There is always a way," she said. "Never give up."