Daniela Larreal

Daniela Larreal’s career as a track cyclist spanned more than two decades, which included her appearing at five Olympic Games and winning more than 30 medals at international competitions. Larreal came from a cycling family in Venezuela, with her father, Daniel, winning silver in the sprint at the 1971 Pan American Games. In her youth she was a talented swimmer, winning several junior titles in the pool, before taking up cycling on the velodrome in the late 1980s. Her first international competition came at the 1990 Central American and Caribbean Games where she won silver in the sprint. The Games proved to be very successful for Larreal, as she finished on the podium 16 times between her début and her final appearance in 2014, winning eight gold medals. After winning gold in the individual sprint at the 1992 Pan American Track Championships she earned herself a spot on the Venezuelan Olympic team for the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Larreal competed at five Olympic Games for Venezuela from 1992 to 2012, only missing out on the 2008 Games in Beijing. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics she rode in the sprint and the points race, before competing in the sprint and the 500 metres time trial at the 2000 Sydney Games. The track time trial was a new event for women at the Sydney Games and saw Larreal set the first Olympic record in the discipline with 35.728 seconds. She eventually finished tenth in the event, with four other cyclists improving the Olympic record during the competition.

In 2003 Larreal won her first medals at the Pan American Games with silver in the sprint and keirin. The following year she once again rode in the sprint at the Olympics, this time finishing eighth at the 2004 Athens Games. Despite her age, she still aimed to compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but she suffered a broken femur and was forced to miss the Games. Once her leg had healed she continued to compete, winning gold in the keirin at the 2011 Pan American Games, along with silvers in the individual and team sprint races. This set her up to compete at her final Olympics where she finished eighth in the keirin and seventh in the team sprint at the 2012 London Games.

Larreal initially retried after the London Olympics, but returned briefly to win two golds and a silver at the 2014 South American Games. She once again had her sights set on the Olympics but was very critical of the Venezuelan government, calling to an end of corruption in sport in her country. She was actively involved in political activism, which saw her receive death threats, and was forced to flee Venezuela and took up asylum in the United States. After living in Miami for some time, she moved to Las Vegas where she worked as a waitress in a hotel. In August 2024 Larreal was found dead after failing to turn up to work, with an autopsy stating she had died of asphyxia after choking on food.