A girl who once rolled around on skates inside her family’s Italian restaurant in Crestview is now the top-ranked mass start speed skater in the world — and she’s racing for Olympic gold this month at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.

• Mia Manganello, 36, grew up in Crestview, where her parents, Dominic and Karen Manganello, owned and operated Mia’s Italian Restaurant, named after her. She attended Walker Elementary School and started inline skating at age 8, winning multiple national championships before she ever touched ice.

In 2002, after the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Manganello and her father drove to Utah to attend an ice speed skating camp. She was hooked. 

Three weeks later, the family closed the restaurant and moved to Salt Lake City so their daughter could train. According to the International Skating Union, Manganello’s parents sold the restaurant to relocate to Utah, where there was better access to training facilities. 

• Manganello became a three-time junior national champion and made four junior world championship teams. She qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2006 and 2010 but did not make either Olympic team. After the 2010 trials, she stepped away from the sport.

What followed was a five-year career as a professional cyclist. Racing for the Visit Dallas/DNA Cycling team from 2013 to 2016, Manganello competed internationally, earning multiple podium finishes and green sprinter’s jerseys in stage races.

A casual visit back to Salt Lake City in the winter of 2015 changed everything. Manganello stepped on the ice for the first time in six years. On her personal website, she wrote that she “couldn’t get skating out of my mind” in the weeks that followed.

She moved back to Salt Lake City. At the 2016 U.S. National Championships, she won the 3,000-meter race with a new personal best and a national title.

Two years later, she made her first Olympic team. At the 2018 PyeongChang Games, Manganello helped Team USA win bronze in the women’s team pursuit — the first U.S. women’s speed skating medal in 16 years.

Crestview noticed. 

In April 2018, the city held a ceremony at Warriors’ Hall and declared “Mia Manganello Day,” presenting her with a key to the city. Okaloosa County and Walker Elementary also participated in the event, according to WEAR-TV.

• She returned for the 2022 Beijing Olympics and finished fourth in the mass start — one spot from the podium.

Now, Manganello enters her third Olympics in the best form of her career. She won her first-ever individual World Cup gold medal in Salt Lake City in November, then added three more podium finishes — a bronze in Calgary, a silver in Heerenveen and a bronze in Inzell — to finish the season as the No. 1-ranked mass start skater in the world.

“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,” she told NBC about the World Cup victory.

• “This is, consistently, the best I’ve ever performed in my entire career,” she told NBC in a separate interview ahead of the Games.

In a Feb. 5 press conference in Milan, Manganello told Reuters she credited a simplified training program for her breakout season, saying her coach helped her narrow her focus to the mass start and team pursuit.

“I let go of the 1500m and 3000m,” she told Reuters. “It was hard to let go at first — I think mostly just ego.”

The mass start — an event she described to KCRA as “NASCAR on Ice” — pits up to 25 skaters against each other at the same time over 16 laps. It made its Olympic debut in 2018.

• “They finally came out with a pack-style event, the mass start. It’s my main discipline,” Manganello told KCRA. “Hopefully it’s where I win a medal.”

When to watch

Manganello is registered to compete in the women’s mass start and women’s team pursuit at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Here is the schedule for her remaining events (all times Central):

• Saturday, Feb. 14 — Women’s team pursuit quarterfinals
• Tuesday, Feb. 17 — Women’s team pursuit semifinals
• Tuesday, Feb. 17 or Wednesday, Feb. 18 — Women’s team pursuit final 
• Saturday, Feb. 21 — Women’s mass start semifinals (approx. 8:50 a.m.) and final (time TBD)