The WheelKings starting guard Kylie Gauci played her 100th senior game for Australia against Germany at the North America Cup in Birmingham, Alabama last week. Unfortunately, the Gliders lost by 3 points to the vastly improved Germans but Kylie distinguished herself by leading the scoring with 15 points.

It has been a rapid ascent for Kylie since she first started playing wheelchair basketball in 1996 at 11 years of age. She achieved her first goal of making the junior national team in 1999. The following year, at just 15 years of age, Kylie was deemed strong enough to mix it with the men in the NWBL and thus joined the WheelKings. Also a promising track athlete, it was at this stage that Kylie made the decision to stick with basketball. That choice was to pay off handsomely.

In 2002, aged 17, Kylie achieved her long-held ambition of playing for the Gliders - firstly in a test series against Japan then on the world stage at the Kitakyushu Gold Cup (world championships) where the Aussie women won the bronze medal.

Kylie has since started for her country at numerous smaller tournaments but a silver medal at Athens 2004 and making the All Star 5 at the 2006 Gold Cup in Amsterdam have been personal highlights. She is now tuning up for a finals run with the WheelKings and then the big one, Beijing, where she will be expected to be a leading contributor.

A profile of Kylie is available at http://www.paralympic.org.au/Portals/0/Profile_Docs/Kylie%20Gauci%20-%20Basketball%20Women.pdf

A full report of the Gliders recent tournaments in America can be viewed at http://www.basketball.net.au/fs_newsitem.asp?id=79507&orgID=1&Oname=BA&O1c=8&O10c=3

(photo courtesy of Basketball Australia)