Michael Mannozzi wasn’t always a race walker, and he didn’t always have the moniker, “The Italian Stallion,” for his race walking prowess.
Mannozzi started his athletic career as a wrestler and a football player in high school, with dreams of running cross country, although he was never able to because of conflicts with the football season.
“During my senior year I found my father’s class ring which had a winged foot on it,” Mannozzi said. “I was unable to shake this itch to try. It took much initiative and convincing to the college cross country coaches as well as the track coach, but I was eventually allowed to try.”
The winged foot refers to Hermes’ winged sandals in greek mythology — a symbol of athleticism that has been adopted by many cross country and track and field teams.
Mannozzi walked on at Notre Dame College in Ohio in 2007 with a rather unorthodox event of choice: race walking. He began competing a year later.
Only the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) – the organization for small colleges – has indoor and outdoor race walking championships, Mannozzi said, so Notre Dame College was the ideal spot to get his start.
Now, almost 15 years later, Mannozzi is training to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. He competed in the The World Athletics Race Walk Championships for the U.S. team in Oman, a country on the southeast corner of the Arabian peninsula, in 2022, and is looking to make the U.S. team yet again.
“I train seven days a week. This is more than to maintain fitness. The act of getting up to train first allows me to better handle whatever the rest of the day throws at me much better,” Mannozzi said.
Mannozzi has surrounded himself with other like minded athletes, regularly training with Olympian race walkers Nick Christie and Miranda Melville on the Silver Strand.
“The accountability is helpful for days one may not feel like showing up. We still do and benefit from being pulled or pushed by the other members of the training group. We all have parallel and often the same goals, which is key,” he said.
For Mannozzi, the competition is about more than just winning or losing. He lost his father to multiple sclerosis and explained that race walking is a direct way for him to walk for his late father.
“He and my grandfather who died within a year of each other. I had to figure out what being Italian and being a Mannozzi really meant,” he said. Mannozzi said the race walking provides him with a very strong connection to his father, a man who was unable to walk.
“I was starting out the least of my teammates and rising to be the most prolific track and field athlete in school history.”
Prolific he was, as Mannozzi was inducted into the Notre Dame College Hall of Fame as a part of the cross country, track and wrestling teams. He won the 2010 NAIA National Championship in the men’s 3,000-meter race walk and finished third at the 2016 USA Track and Field 50K race walk in Santee.
Now that the 2024 Olympics have passed, Mannozzi has received another assignment as an active duty member of the Air Force. He will be moving 300 miles north to the Vandenberg Space Force Base near Lompoc. He said he hopes to return to Coronado for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
