Yaniel Velazquez

Who is Yaniel Velazquez?

Yaniel Velázquez Garcia is a Cuban modern pentathlete. He won a silver medal for the men's event at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which earned him a qualifying place for the Olympics, with an impressive score of 5,344 points.

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Velazquez became the nation's first ever modern pentathlete to compete in the men's event. During the competition, he made a strong start in the early segments, but struggled to maintain his position in the entire event, when he set the slowest time of 2:16.38 in freestyle swimming. He managed to attain fair scores for horse riding and cross-country running; however, these were insufficiently enough for him to reach on top of the rankings. In the end, Velazquez placed fifteenth out of thirty-six competitors in the men's event, with a total score of 5,292 points.