A five-time Olympian cyclist and one of the most famous athletes in her native Venezuela has died in Las Vegas at age 50, reports the Guardian. An investigation is continuing, but police suspect Daniela Larreal Chirinos choked to death on food in her apartment. Co-workers reported her missing when she failed to turn up at the hotel where she worked. Chirinos competed in the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2012 Olympics for Venezuela, per People. (Both reports cite a Spanish-language Fox Sports story.)
Chirinos didn't medal at the Olympics, but she won two golds at the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador in 2002, and she won two silvers at the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo the following year. She might have had an easier post-cycling retirement at home if not for her political activism against strongmen leaders Hugo Chavez and, after him, Nicolas Maduro. Chirinos was forced into exile after Maduro came to power in 2013, and she drove an Uber for a while in Miami before moving to Vegas, according to the Guardian. (Maduro is clinging to power, though the West thinks he lost Venezuela's recent election.)
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