Mia Manganello opened this season riding the highest of highs.
The 2025-26 Speed Skating World Cup circuit began in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Manganello’s passion for the sport began in 2002. She entered the weekend as the two-time reigning national champion and the world No. 2 in the mass start, which was set to close the weekend’s competition.
There, in her last event at her last World Cup on home ice, Manganello dashed to gold, marking her first individual win on the World Cup level (a miscalculation somewhere during the race concluded the contest after 15 laps instead of the usual 16, but Manganello’s result stood regardless).
“It was 20 years of blood, sweat, and tears, and all the sacrifice and dedication that myself and my family and friends have put forth for me to get to that moment,” Manganello said.
On the ice, Manganello looks alert and collected, two skills necessary for any speed skater but especially those who specialize in the mass start.
The mass start is chaotic, much more akin to a short track race than a traditional speed skating one. In the mass start, up to 24 athletes race in a pack as opposed to in pairs in separate lanes, inviting physical contact and field-altering collisions between skaters. The 16-lap event (which covers roughly 6,400 meters, or almost 7,000 yards) combines sprints and slower laps, requiring a unique proficiency in both which many other speed skaters get by without. To excel in the mass start, a skater must be strategic and attentive.
Manganello has mastered the event. She finished this season with three more World Cup mass start medals (one silver and two bronze) and her first individual World Cup title. She also aided in two national record-setting efforts by the U.S. women’s team pursuit trio. At 36 years old, she is at the peak of her career.
Despite that fact, she’s decided that this season will be her last.
“This is, consistently, the best I’ve ever performed in my entire career, so to step away now — in most people’s eyes, it would be a crime,” Manganello said. “But to me, I’m just ready.”
Manganello didn't get to this point without her share of lows. In fact, she once temporarily retired from the sport because of them. But thanks to them, she boasts a newfound sense of gratitude that affords her satisfaction in quitting while she's ahead and confidence heading into her third Olympic Games in Milan Cortina.
Before Manganello picked up speed skating at age 13, she lived in Crestview, Florida. Originally an inline skater, Manganello would spend her days rolling around the dining room of her parents’ Italian restaurant — named “Mia’s” after her — in her skates, bussing tables, manning the register, and eating pizza from the kitchen. Every now and then, the waitresses would slip her a dollar or two as thanks for her help.
Operating a restaurant is no easy task. It requires early mornings, strict routines, and a detail-oriented personality — all things that translate to the life of a professional athlete.
“Growing up in a restaurant — it’s character-building. There’s so much dedication,” Manganello said. “Seeing my parents wake up every single day to go in and repeat the same process every single day — I’m sure had something to do with my ability to stay motivated every single morning when it’s cold and dark out, the sun hasn’t risen, and I’m eating breakfast in the dark to do the exact same thing every single day.”
In 2002, the Manganellos closed their restaurant and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah to allow Mia to chase her newfound dream of becoming a speed skater, discovered after attending a speed skating camp at the newly-minted Olympic Oval. Between the years of 2003 and 2010, Manganello dedicated all of her energy to the sport, becoming a three-time junior national champion, making four junior world championship teams and three senior World Cup teams, and qualifying for Olympic Trials in 2006 and 2010.
But after missing out on both Olympic teams, she needed a change. She landed on competitive cycling, a sport which offers a similar adrenaline rush to speed skating but demands a more team-focused mindset.
For Manganello, who was 21 years old at the time and, admittedly, a little self-absorbed, the transition to a team sport forced her to get out of her own head and work with those around her.
“I was a young, driven, this-is-everything-in-my-life person, and I really took for granted the opportunities I had in speed skating,” Manganello said. “I had to get out of the solo, selfish, self-centered mentality and go into a team atmosphere … That shifted my mental maturity.”
That shift did more good than Manganello realized at the time. Inspired by a trip back to Salt Lake City in 2015 and fearing the possibility of unrealized potential, she decided to give speed skating another shot.
By the time the 2016 U.S. Championships rolled around, she had regained enough skill to capture the national title in the 3000m (shaving four seconds off her personal-best time in the process) and the mass start. Two years later, she finally qualified for her first Olympic Games and lifted the United States to its first-ever Olympic medal in the women’s team pursuit — a bronze — and the first speed skating medal earned by any U.S. woman since 2002.
In the years since, Manganello has continued to alter her mental approach to the sport, building on the lessons she learned as a professional cyclist.
Manganello made the decision to end her career this year back in 2022, shortly following the Beijing Games. Going into this season carrying that knowledge made the upcoming winter months incredibly intimidating; it was her last chance to negate any potential regrets.
Then, over the summer, something shifted in her mind again. With the help of her sports psychologist, Manganello rediscovered the game-changing appreciation for the present she found during her speed skating hiatus.
“When you’re able to tap into that mindset, I think you’re able to relax a bit more and put less pressure on yourself,” Manganello said. “It’s a privilege to be able to do this, but it’s also the only time in our lives we’re able to do this … I try to help my younger teammates be present and enjoy the moment and not put so much pressure on themselves.”
In an attempt to keep her anxieties at bay, Manganello has added consistent self care into her training regimen: haircuts, nail appointments, shopping — especially on race days, per the insistence of Gabriel Girard, the national team’s long distance coach. Tapping into her femininity helps Manganello retain her sense of self in a sport that requires its athletes to wear restrictive, uniform spandex suits.
“[Gabriel has] realized that I really am able to perform much better when I’m much more relaxed, with a clearer mind, than when there’s that anxiety, pressure hazing everything.”
Due in large part to her new philosophy, Manganello’s mass start results on the World Cup circuit pre-qualified her for the Olympic team. That meant she simply had to start the race at Olympic Trials to secure her spot, removing the pressure from the event that haunted her so much early in her career.
Still, she got butterflies as she walked into the Pettit National Ice Center in early January — not just for herself, but for her teammates who had yet to qualify.
In February, nearly 25 years after she first stepped onto an oval, Manganello will aim to tie up her career with her first Olympic mass start podium and her second in the team pursuit. As she prepares for her swan song in Milan Cortina — a 'poetic,' 'romantic,' 'storybook' coincidence at top of mind given her family’s former business — she plans to visit the salon in the Olympic Village to get the perfect Olympic manicure.
“I feel good about what I’ve accomplished, and my mind and body are ready,” Manganello said. “Really, win or lose at the Games, I’m proud of myself.”