Mia Manganello’s final Olympic push hands U.S. speedskating a hard-won podium lift — who feels it first and why it matters
Milan — At the finish line, mia manganello’s bronze in the women’s mass start landed like a payoff for teammates, family and a U. S. program that has watched her zigzag between sports. This matters now because it is her final Olympic race and it delivers her first individual Olympic medal after a winding career that began on inline skates, detoured into pro cycling, and returned to the ice.
Mia Manganello’s medal: immediate impact on family, teammates and a personal arc
The 36-year-old framed the result as the culmination of sacrifices by her parents and a host of relationships — coaches, teammates and friends — and called the medal “everything” for that journey. For teammates who know the long slog of switching disciplines and rebuilding form, the bronze is a visible reward for persistence; for Manganello herself it closes a chapter that began with narrowly missing the 2010 Olympic team in Vancouver.
Race snapshot and how the mass start unfolded
The medal arrived in the most chaotic, unpredictable race in speedskating: the women’s mass start. For most of the 16-lap contest, with 16 racers on the ice at the same time, the pack stayed intact — a contrast with the men’s race moments earlier. It wasn’t until the bell lap that the race truly ignited.
Finish sequence, times and podium order
- Bell lap break: Marijke Groenewoud of the Netherlands and Manganello were first to sprint out, with Canada’s Ivanie Blondin tightly following.
- Three-woman duel: Groenewoud pulled ahead; Blondin closed and passed Manganello in the final stretch by 0. 30 seconds.
- Official times: Groenewoud 8: 34. 70 (gold), Blondin 8: 35. 09 (silver), Manganello 8: 35. 39 (bronze).
- After the finish, Manganello raised her arms and showed a surge of emotion at the line.
Long view: the comeback, the misses and the milestones
Her path to this bronze reads like a compact timeline of detours and returns: she narrowly missed qualifying for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and stepped away from skating, becoming a professional cyclist after hopping on a bike. She returned to the ice in 2016 and qualified for the Games in Pyeongchang eight years after that first near-miss, where she won bronze in the team pursuit. Four years ago in Beijing she finished fourth in the mass start, missing the podium by a little more than a second. Saturday’s podium in her final Olympic race yields her first individual medal and marks a second Olympic bronze as she heads out of competition.
- Missed Vancouver 2010 team
- Switched to professional cycling after stepping away
- Returned to skating in 2016; bronze in team pursuit in Pyeongchang eight years after 2010
- Fourth in the mass start in Beijing four years ago, narrowly off the podium
- Saturday in Milan: bronze in the 16-lap mass start, first individual Olympic medal
The timeline above is a compact look at how the result fits into Manganello’s career and underscores that Saturday’s medal is both an ending and a final, personal vindication.
Here’s the part that matters for fans and teammates: this was a late-career individual breakthrough after team success, not a return to an earlier peak. The real question now is how this result reshapes the narrative around athletes who move between disciplines and return to elite competition.
What’s easy to miss is the emotional detail: crossing the line prompted an outpouring that mixed disbelief and release. She described screaming, bawling and a sense of impostor syndrome before the finish — fighting to "hold it together" on the back stretch — and then letting the emotion go when she realized the result.
Small, concrete markers capture the drama: 16 laps, 16 skaters on the ice, the bell lap sprint and a three-woman dash that produced three times within 0. 69 seconds. For Manganello, who called the medal the result of sacrifices by her family and support network, Saturday’s bronze is a final Olympic punctuation point in Milan.
