Venezuelan opposition leader Machado says a close ally was kidnapped hours after prison release

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Monday said one of her closest allies was kidnapped hours after being released from prison.

The government had released several prominent opposition members from prison Sunday after lengthy politically motivated detentions. Machado said on social media that Juan Pablo Guanipa was taken around midnight in a residential neighborhood of the capital, Caracas.

“Heavily armed men, dressed in civilian clothes, arrived in four vehicles and violently took him away,” she posted on X. “We demand his immediate release.”

The releases of the opposition figures came as the government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez has faced mounting pressure to free hundreds of people whose detentions months or years ago have been linked to their political activities. The releases also followed a visit to Venezuela of representatives of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The government’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Monday.

Rodríguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s acting president after the Jan. 3 capture of then-President Nicolás Maduro by the U.S. military. Her government began releasing prisoners days later.

Some of those freed Sunday joined families waiting outside prisons for their loved ones to be released. They chanted “We are not afraid! We are not afraid!” and marched a short distance.

“I am convinced that our country has completely changed,” Guanipa, a former governor, had told reporters hours after his release. “I am convinced that it is now up to all of us to focus on building a free and democratic country.”

Guanipa had spent more than eight months in custody.

Venezuelan-based prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal confirmed the release of at least 30 people Sunday.

In addition to Guanipa, Machado’s political organization said several of its members were among the released, including María Oropeza, who livestreamed her arrest by military intelligence officers as they broke into her home with a crowbar. Machado’s attorney, Perkins Rocha, was also freed.

Alfredo Romero, president of Foro Penal, expressed serious concern over Guanipa's disappearance.

“So far, we have no clear information about who took him,” he said on X. “We hope he will be released immediately.”

Guanipa's son, Ramón, said on social media that his father was “intercepted and kidnapped” by “a group of approximately 10 unidentified people.” He also described three vehicles involved in the situation.

“We demand proof of life immediately and his release,” Ramón Guanipa wrote on X.

Guanipa was detained in late May and accused by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello of participating in an alleged “terrorist group” plotting to boycott that month’s legislative election. Guanipa’s brother Tomás rejected the accusation, and said the arrest was meant to crack down on dissent.

“Thinking differently cannot be criminalized in Venezuela, and today, Juan Pablo Guanipa is a prisoner of conscience of this regime,” Tomás Guanipa said after the arrest.

Rodríguez’s government announced Jan. 8 it would free a significant number of prisoners — a central demand of the country’s opposition and human rights organizations with backing from the United States — but families and rights watchdogs have criticized authorities for the slow pace of the releases.

The ruling party-controlled National Assembly last week began debating an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners. The opposition and nongovernmental organizations have reacted with cautious optimism as well as with suggestions and demands for more information on the contents of the proposal.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez on Friday posted a video on Instagram showing him outside a detention center in Caracas and saying that “everyone” would be released no later than next week, once the amnesty bill is approved.

Delcy Rodríguez and Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke by phone in late January. His spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, in a statement said he sent a team to the country and “offered our support to help Venezuela work on a roadmap for dialogue and reconciliation" in which human rights should be centered.

Opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa rides on the back of a motorcycle after his release from prison in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026.(AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

Opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa, right, and political activist Jesus Armas ride on the back of motorbikes after their release from prison in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

Opposition leaders María Oropeza and Juan Pablo Guanipa, left, ride motorbikes through Caracas, Venezuela, after their release from custody, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa records a video message to supporters after his release from prison in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Lindsey Vonn knows the Olympic downhill course better than anyone.

She’s won a record 12 World Cup races on the Olympia delle Tofane track — split evenly between six downhills and six super-Gs — and has a total of 20 podium results there, stretching back to her very first podium on the entire circuit in 2004.

So how did the 41-year-old American standout lose control just 12.5 seconds into her run and crash so spectacularly at the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Sunday?

Here’s what happened and why:

The highlight of the downhill course is the Tofana schuss, a narrow chute between two walls of Dolomite rock where the skiers accelerate to 80 mph (130 kph).

But the real key to the Olympia delle Tofane track comes above the schuss, where there’s a key right turn that includes an uphill stretch. That’s where Vonn went down.

“It’s incredibly reverse banked,” said Kristian Ghedina, the Cortina native and former racer who grew up in a home just below the finish line. “That’s where your speed for the rest of the course gets determined and if you don’t take the right trajectory it makes a huge difference because you end up going uphill.”

Vonn was fighting that reverse bank and trending slightly uphill when she got rocked into the air by a bump, causing her to clip the fourth gate with her right side.

That’s when the real disaster started to unfold.

Vonn tried to twist and regain her balance in mid-air but landed awkwardly with her skis perpendicular to the fall line, ensuring a brutal fall. She tumbled over, got bounced into the air again and landed on her neck area and slid down a ways before coming to a stop in the middle of the course, away from the safety netting but clearly in serious trouble.

Hours later, Vonn underwent surgery for a broken left leg and was in stable condition.

“It’s super flat after it so the goal is to be as close to that gate as possible and she really nailed the turn but she was too close to it so she got hooked into it," Norwegian skier Kajsa Vickhoff Lie said of the gate. “But that’s how it is with the Olympics, you really want to be on the limit and she was a little bit over the limit.”

While it’s always bumpy in that section, this year the final bump is “more of a kicker,” Lie noted, which is why Vonn got popped up suddenly into the air.

“I watched the video, and probably like anybody else, saw that she went through that panel, that uphill double, and for sure kicked her in the air and there was a pretty significant fall after that,” head U.S. ski coach Paul Kristofic told The Associated Press.

Women's race director Peter Gerdol said the section where Vonn lost control was “not really more different than other years.”

“This is the Cortina downhill and this year we’re talking about the Olympics,” he told AP. “It’s awarding Olympic medals so has to be somehow challenging.”

Had attention been paid to controlling the size of that bump?

“Not severely,” Gerdol said. “Because actually today, all the athletes went through quite easily. Lindsey made a mistake and it happens. It can happen in any section of the course. It happened there but it could have been in another.”

When she came to a stop, Vonn's skis were facing in opposite directions, still attached to her bindings. She then moved her left arm toward her body and was lying there alone and virtually immobile until help arrived after some tense moments. She received care for long minutes before she was airlifted away by helicopter.

The mandatory safety air bag inflated under her racing suit during the crash, supplier Dainese confirmed to the AP. The air bag, which is triggered by a complicated algorithm when racers lose control, may have softened her landing.

It was evident that the air bag had opened, because Vonn’s chest appeared puffed out when she was lying on the snow.

Marco Pastore, who works on the safety system for Dainese, said the air bag deflates after about 20 seconds, so that likely happened while Vonn was lying on the snow after her crash. Eventually, Dainese will try to retrieve a sort of “black box” sensor that could reveal data on the fall.

“She was wearing it when they took her away in the helicopter,” Pastore said. “So we haven’t gotten the data yet.”

AP Sports Writer Steve Douglas contributed to this report.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

United States' Lindsey Vonn is airlifted away after a crash during an alpine ski women's downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)