Name: Monica Bascio Birthday: September, 16, 1969 Currently Resides: Evergreen, CO Hometown: Ridgewood, NJ and Santa Cruz, CA Family: Married to Ian Lawless ; One son, Henry Lane Lawless Team(s): U.S. Ski Team and Team Invacare / Top End Racing Classification: HCC Women [Handcycling] LW11 Women [Skiing]

Monica Bascio a Paralympic athlete, who competes in cycling, cross-country skiing, and biathlon. She is an IPC handcycling World Champion (2002), and completed her 9^th season of racing in 2006. She was the top U.S. woman in handcycling from 1999 through 2006.

Bascio was born in Long Island, NY and moved to Santa Cruz, CA in 1989, just in time for the Loma Prieta earthquake. In 1992, she was paralyzed from the waste down (T12 vertebrae) while skiing in the Sierras. After her rehabilitation at Kessler Medical Center, she returned to Santa Cruz and earned her degree in Occupational Therapy. In 1998, she took up handcycling, and competed at the IPC World Cycling Championships that same year, but did not medal. The following season, she found her form and from 1999 until 2002, was the #1-ranked handcyclist in the World, winning many important races, including all of the IPC-sanctioned races she entered in Europe.

Monica is also one of only two 5-time winners of the Sadler’s Ultra Challenge : The longest and toughest wheelchair and handcycle race in the world. The event covers 267-miles from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Alaska, and is widely regarded as “The Tour de France of Wheelchair Sports.” Alejandro Albor, of Elk Grove, CA is the only other 5-time winner, completing his 5^th victory in 2007.

In 2002, following news that the International Paralympic Committee would not include a women’s handcycling event at the Paralympic Games in 2004 (Athens, Greece), Bascio moved from Santa Cruz, CA to Evergreen, CO and took-up Nordic skiing. She won a silver  medal at the World Championships in Orford in 2003. She was the top U.S. woman in Nordic skiing in 2005 and 2006, and she competed in the 2006 Paralympic Games in Torino, Italy, where her best result was 5^th in the 10-kilometer long-distance cross-country ski race.

In 2007, Monica took a hiatus from her racing career and expanded her family (with husband, Ian Lawless) by giving birth to a son, Henry Lane Lawless . Henry was born on July 8, 2007 and weighed 6lbs, 8.5oz. She will likely make a modified return to racing for the 2007/2008 season, and plans to race a limited Nordic skiing schedule in order to spend as much time as possible with her son, Henry.

2008/09 Update: Monica ended up taking 2008 off after suffering a tib/fib fracture at a ski race in Norway. She was very disappointed as it ruined her chances to make the 2008 Parlaympic Cycling Team. In 2009, she won the bronze medal in the 5k at the Parlaympic test event in Whistler BC, Canada, and finished 2nd overall in the IPC XC Skiing World Cup, and even won a few key handcycliing events in the summer.

2009/10 Update: Despite some early season disappointments on the xc ski racing front, Monica made the US Ski Team and the Paralympic Team and will compete in XC skiing (not biathlon) at the 2010 Paralympic Games , and is even a possible candidate for the 2010 Para Cycling World Championships which will be held in Canada.