How Arly Velasquez turned a magical New Year's Day into a life mission
Mexican Velasquez was a junior national mountain bike champion before an accident put an end to his promising athletic career. Or so it seemed until one memorable New Year.
To hear Arly Velasquez talk about the mountains is to hear words of unconditional love.
Unconditional because while the mountains have been the place where the four-time Paralympian has experienced his greatest joys, they have also been the site of his biggest injuries.
Velasquez was a promising mountain biker when he had an accident that broke his back and seemed to take him out of competitive sports for good. That outlook changed on one magical New Year’s Day during which he rediscovered the path to the place he loved most.
“I position the mountain as one of my greatest teachers throughout my life,” Velasquez said. “When I had an accident in the mountain, it was a matter of time to come back to the mountain in a different way, and the way that I found was the mono ski. It was a full circle then.”
Olympics.com spoke to the Mexican mountain biker-turned-Para alpine skier about the memorable New Year’s Day that changed the course of his life and helped him to regain his freedom.
Arly Velasquez is the second Mexican athlete to ever compete at a Winter Paralympic Games
Arly Velasquez’s first journey to the mountains, on a bike
While Velasquez is never too far from a mountain landscape these days, the place where he grew up more famous for its sandy beaches.
Born in Cancun, it was not until his parents divorced - and he moved with his mother to Mexico City - that Velasquez discovered the beauty of the mountains.
Overwhelmed by Mexico City’s bustle, a 10-year-old Velasquez took up mountain biking in the ridges surrounding the nation’s capital to reconnect with nature. His growing love for the mountains was returned in full as he improved quickly and became a junior national champion at the age of 12.
“The mountains have always been that space where I have been developing as a person,” Velasquez said. “It's been a space that I just need.”
The future looked promising for the young rider, but everything changed on 29 September 2001 when Velasquez took a tumble down the mountainside, breaking his spine.
While his teammates tried their best to cheer him up and helped him to visit the mountains again, now in his wheelchair, the road back to competitive sport seemed closed to him forever.
A “magical” New Year’s Day on the slopes
It was not until seven years later that the mountains would welcome Velasquez back as an athlete.
He was on holiday in Banff, Canada as the clocks counted down the last hours until 2009. Seeing the skiers at the resort, Velasquez recalled that Armando Ruiz, the only Winter Paralympian Mexico has had to date, once showed him a mono ski.
And so, while other holidaymakers were dressing up to ring in the New Year at glittering parties, Velasquez spent the last hours of 2008 on the phone, trying to book a ski lesson.
He called three ski schools and managed to snatch a lesson at one that had a last-minute cancellation. The class was scheduled for 9am on New Year’s Day with the person who had originally booked the slot pulling out due to an extreme cold weather warning.
The temperatures plummeted to -22 degrees Celsius on 1 January as strong winds and snow blizzards swept across the Canadian provinces, forcing most people to spend the day indoors. Velasquez was not one of them.
“I thought it wasn't a big deal, but it ended up being kind of a big deal,” he recalled with a laugh. “It was very, very, very cold. But the purpose was even bigger. And I just went for it.”
Bundling up in winter clothing that was so bulky it made it difficult to control the bi-ski, Velasquez went down the slope and once again fell under the spell of the mountains.
“That day was pure magic,” he said. “It was those conditions that there's snow dust in the air and then there's the sun, so all the reflections were like it was glitter in the sky.”
By the time Velasquez finished the lesson, his eyes were tearing up from the cold, but his heart was filled with warmth. The memories of his mountain bike races had come flashing back over the course of that morning, and his former competitive drive was reawakened.
“It was a moment that definitely changed the course of my life forever,” he said.
After finding out that he could not compete on a bi-ski at a Paralympic Games, Velasquez made the switch to a mono ski the very next day. This transition usually requires weeks, but Velasquez was too eager to restart his journey as an athlete.
Upon returning to Mexico, he sold all his belongings and took a flight to the Mexico-USA border. There he bought a beat-up truck and drove 14 hours north to Park City, Utah on a mission to turn his New Year’s Day fairy tale into a daily reality.
Memorable descents down four Paralympic mountains
The journey to becoming a competitive Para alpine skier was not always a smooth one, but for Velasquez the benefits were bigger than the bruises.
“It was two years and a half of falls and a lot of punishment in hits and recovers and, honestly, if that was the demand and I was just starting right now, maybe I would not be down for it. But I am glad that I was 20, that I was not as smart or I was braver,” Velasquez said with a laugh. “Definitely, it's a tough sport. But the reward, it's huge as well.”
Velasquez made his Paralympic debut 14 months after the audacious move to Utah, at Vancouver 2010, with Mexico’s dormant volcano Iztaccihuatl proudly stitched on the back of his ski jacket.
Sochi 2014 were his second Paralympic Games. Velasquez felt better prepared and finished 11th in the Super G – his best result at a Paralympics to date – but a crash in the following race almost ended his career as an athlete, yet again.
He underwent back surgery and was put in a medically-induced coma for three days. After waking up, he experienced speech and vision problems and ultimately stopped competing for two years.
As the next Games inched closer, however, the temptation to return to the mountains proved too strong for Velasquez to resist.
“That sport gives me the best feelings that I can find in this life. It's so fulfilling every single time that I am in a mono ski, in a mountain, and I don't find that freedom feeling anywhere else. That's why I keep coming back,” said the Mexican Para alpine skier who went on to compete at PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022.
“Every time I come back from the mountain and skiing, I'm a different person. Whenever I have that ability to move in the mountain that way, with that control… it's pure joy, pure connection, pure coherence with my existence, my ability, and my surrounding.”
Beijing 2022 marked the fourth Paralympic Games for Arly Velasquez who made his Paralympic debut in 2010
New optimism, same sombrero, en route to Milano Cortina 2026
Velasquez has now competed at four Paralympic Games, making him the Mexican athlete with the most appearances at a Winter Paralympics.
While the skier jokes that he has “been retiring since PyeongChang”, he is now feeling more optimistic than ever about his racing. A second-place finish in the Super G at the Open National Championships in Winter Park, Colorado in April 2024 – a mere 0.02 seconds behind winner Ravi Drugan – put Velasquez back into the top 11 in the world.
He also changed his mono ski at the start of the current season, switching to a heavier model that is better suited to his aggressive skiing style.
Now 36 years old, Velasquez is eager to make what might be his last years as a competitive Para alpine skier count, not only for himself but also for his country and its people.
“For a Mexican from Cancun to be in the Winter Paralympics and to be within the best 11 mono skiers in the world, it's huge,” said Velasquez who proudly donned a sombrero at the Opening Ceremonies of the last three Paralympic Games where he was the only Mexican athlete and also the flagbearer.
“I am lucky that because of me being stubborn enough to pursue my dreams, then it put me in a place that my story means something to people.
“I have been thinking a lot of my life that my value is my results. And then there was a time that I understood that it goes way farther than that. And I'm happy that I was able to see it because this is huge. To be able to move lives, it's huge and it's my biggest purpose in life.”