Dying To Ask

How do you know when it's time to walk away from an Olympic career? Mia Manganello says it's a feeling. 

But that's where is gets tricky.  Most of the time, those feelings are because an athlete's results aren't what they used to be. 

Mia is still very much on top in the world of long track speedskating. She just qualified for her third Olympic Team in team pursuit and mass start.  

At 36, she just feels ready to do something else and she's determined to finish her skating career with as much grace as she has grit.

"This is also going to be my last Olympics. That was hard to say," admits Mia. 

Mia describes the Olympic journey as addictive. 

"When you get a taste of the Olympics, it's so addicting and just pushing yourself to that limit and and working hard every single day and having someone around you, the team atmosphere, the whole thing is intoxicating," says Mia. 

Intoxicating and in Mia's case, fancy.  Her skate bag has a Chanel logo and she gets a manicure every four weeks! 

Mia says, "We spend all day, every day in spandex. So I like to feel like a girl. So I get my hair done and my nails done, and I like my my nice things!" 

The U.S. Olympic Long Track speedskating roster is set and it's a mixture of up and comers and veterans like Brittany Bowe.

Bowe has won two Olympic bronze medals and she have very clear goals for the 2026 games in Milan-Cortina.

"I'm still chasing that ultimate dream of becoming Olympic champion. I want nothing less than to step on the top of that podium," says Bowe.

Long track pits skaters against the clock and each other on a 400 meter track. It's the same distance as a high school running track.

Competitors race distances ranging from 500 meters to 5-thousand meters. It takes extraordinary physical and mental endurance.

The 2026 Winter Games will be Brittany's fourth Olympics. She grew up in Florida and made the transition from inline skating to speedskating in 2010.

At 37, she's a veteran athlete. That requires training smarter not harder. Brittany credits tools like hypnotherapy for her continued success. And, her outlook this Olympic run is different. She's operating from a true sense of gratitude.

Brittany says, "I'm going to enjoy the process. I'm going to enjoy everything it takes to set myself up for success, to be an able to perform on the highest level, to have the opportunity, to chase that gold medal."

Imagine all your dreams coming true at the age of 18. It's a real possibility for snowboarder Hanna Percy.

The athlete from Truckee, California, is the youngest member of the U.S. female snowboard cross team.

Typically, elite snowboarders earn a place on the U.S. Development Team before moving to the Pro Team and then onto an Olympic Team.

Hanna's results were so good that she skipped the development level and went straight to the pro team. Now, at 18, she has a shot at representing Team USA at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.

Hanna says, "We have six girls competing for three spots right now."

Hanna's parents were pro snowboarders in the 1990s. Their daughter's talent and need for speed showed up early. 

Her mother, Kim Percy, remembers "she was probably 10 when she passed me on the hill. It's like her board is a connection to her feet."

Hanna left Northern California when she was 16 and enrolled at the prestigious Gould Academy, where her snowboarding results soared. The small co-ed academy in Western Maine is a favorite for winter sports athletes with Olympic ambitions.

The move paid off. The environment allowed her to finish high school while launching her pro career.

In person, Hanna is incredibly likable and friendly. But on the snow she's known for a grit and fierce need to win that's propelling her career at record speed.

"I just like, kind of have to win," Hanna admits.

But there a playful side too.  And, it's evident in every start gate where she Macarenas to loosen up and lessen the stress!

Jamie Anderson defies gravity and stereotypes in her latest push to make an Olympic team.

Jamie is a 3-time Olympic snowboarder and 3-time Olympic medalist. She has two golds and a silver.

She grew up in South Lake Tahoe and is one of eight children. She started snowboarding at the age of nine after being introduced to the sport by her two older sisters.

Jamie competed in her first X Games at the age of 13. At 35, she has the most the most X Games hardware of any woman in history and the second-most winter medals of any athlete.

She's a 5-time ESPY female action sports award winner.

Jamie acknowledges she was pretty untouchable for years.

"There were years that I was like winning with my eyes shut and there wasn't a lot of competition," says Jamie.

She took a three year break to have two daughters with her fiancée, fellow pro snowboarder Tyler Nicholson. Five months after the birth of their second daughter, Jamie became the 2025 Big Air National Champion. And she's breaking new ground as a working mom in her sport.

Jamie says, "Just having the opportunity to go for a fourth Olympics with my family, my two little ones, and my partner feels like very special."

It takes a village to raise an Olympic hopeful. And sometimes, that village has to change ZIP codes.

Brooklyn DePriest is a snowboarder for Team USA, hoping to make his Olympic debut at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games. He competes in slopestyle.

Brooklyn grew up in Northern California in a Sacramento-area suburb called Rocklin. The DePriests spent their winter weekends in Tahoe. Brooklyn's snowboarding talent quickly became apparent as competitions would result in him standing on podiums.

By the time he was 12, his parents were advised that their son had the potential to go pro and maybe even go to the Olympics.

The catch? He'd need to move for more specialized coaching.

The problem? The entire DePriest family loved their home and neighborhood in Rocklin.

"There were probably about 10 families involved in the neighborhood," Brooklyn DePreist said. We would ride to school on our bikes and skateboards every single day. We all played the same sport, so we were on the same sports teams."

Neither of Brooklyn's parents came from a winter sports background.

"The coaches are telling us, like, he has real talent, but we're like, does he? I don't know," Courtney DePriest, Brooklyn's mom, said.

The DePriests made the tough decision to relocate to Vail, Colorado, where both their sons could attend a good school while Brooklyn pursued his Olympic goals.

Seven years later, Brooklyn DePriest is a contender to compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

This is one of the most candid conversations I've ever had with an athlete's parents about the sacrifice entire families make to follow Olympic dreams.

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Olympic skier AJ Hurt is the ultimate "bring your kid to work" success story.

Her dad is on the ski patrol at Palisades Tahoe resort and AJ grew up hanging out with her dad on the mountain.

AJ competed for Palisades Tahoe before making it onto the U.S. Ski Team as a teenager.

"I was 16 when I raced my first World Cup. No one knows what they're doing at 16!" says AJ.

But AJ figured it out quickly. She's an eight year member of the U.S. Ski Team, a three-time U.S. Alpine champ, and competed in the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

She's as dedicated to her studies as she is her efforts on the snow. AJ studied engineering at Dartmouth. And, she's an accomplished musician as well. Fellow U.S. ski team members rely on her piano skills for impromptu singalongs on the road during the ski season.

We caught up with AJ during off-season training in Tahoe to talk about how to maintain life perspective while competing at such a high level.

"Head first" isn't a choice for Kendall Wesenberg. It's a job requirement.

The skeleton slider has also turned it into her life mantra. And her grit to push through life and it's challenges is becoming legendary.

The 2018 Olympian is working toward qualifying for her second Olympic Team. But she's already put in a gold medal worthy effort just trying to qualify for the 2026 Winter Games.

Kendall grew up in Modesto, California, playing a variety of sports. She graduated from CU-Boulder and in 2010 watched the sport of skeleton for the first time during the Vancouver Olympics. She thought, "I wonder if I could do that?"

She attended a sliding athletes combine and discovered she had an irrational need for speed and the innate talent to get good at one of the most niche Olympic sport.

Skeleton athletes slide head first on their stomachs down the same icy track the bobsleds go down.

Athletes use their shoulder sand knees to steer.

Kendall explains, "There are anywhere from 12 to 20-something curves that you try and cover in about a minute, usually less."

She's gone as fast at 86 miles per hour on a track. And, she competed in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

But she failed to make the 2022 Olympic Team. It turns out she had an undiagnosed spinal injury that had gone untreated for three years. It explained the immense pain she'd experienced training and competing.

"The things that hold your spine in place snapped off of my back. And when it didn't get diagnosed, my vertebrae just slid out of my spinal column. So it was like fully pinching my nerves. I couldn't feel my legs," says Kendall.

Her surgeon recommended a spinal fusion, a surgery with a very long recovery.

Kendall jokes, "The playbook's pretty thin on a return to sport post spine fusion."

But her doctor didn't close the door on a return to the sport she loved. Kendall spent three months in a back brace, seven months barely walking and couldn't start serious physical therapy until 10 months post surgery.

600 days later she returned to the ice describing her return to a track as "awesome."

A year later, she's earned a spot on the U.S. World Cup Skeleton Team and she's actively trying to qualify for that second Olympic Team.

Whoever said quitters never win never met Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu.

Liu quit figure skating after the 2022 Winter Olympics. At age 16, she was burned out and wanted to be a normal teenager. 

"I was done a year before I quit. I knew I wanted to be done way before I actually announced my retirement," Liu said.

For two years, Liu embraced life as a teenager, making up for lost time she'd spent on the ice. She got a driver's license, drove her four siblings to school, stayed up late and hung out with friends. She traveled for fun instead of competitions and even hiked in the Himalayas.

She enrolled at UCLA and even took up skiing, a sport she'd never had time to try as an elite figure skater.

She loved the feel of the cold air on her face when she was skiing. It reminded her of skating and two years after retiring, Alysa went to a local rink with a friend.

Alysa started skating for fun, and it wasn't long before she got the itch to skate more seriously. She called a former coach, Phillip DiGuglielmo, and asked him what he thought about her coming out of retirement. At first, he wasn't a fan.

"I said, 'Please don't. I really did.'  I said, 'Please don't. Respect your legacy,'" DiGuglielmo said. "We had a Zoom call for two hours. The story is I had a lot of glasses of wine over those two hours. And she talked me into a comeback."

The two started training together, and seven months later, Liu won a world title in a sport she left as a child but returned to as an adult.

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Bryce Bennett has a new title, and it's his favorite one yet: dad.

The two-time Olympic skier is going for his third Olympic Team. Bryce is 33 and has spent nearly half his life on the U.S. Ski Team.

Bryce and his wife, Kelley, welcomed their first child, a daughter, this spring.

"You have this thing that is totally dependent on you," Bennett said. "You're in total love with it. And you will do anything to give it as many opportunities as you can."

One of those opportunities will be a front row seat to her dad trying to make his third Olympic Team after 14 years of competing with the U.S. Ski Team around the world.

"Kelley is going to come over, and we're going to rent an apartment and spend a lot of time in Europe this winter. The little baby is going to come over, and we're just going to live life and figure it out," Bennett said.

Bryce grew up in Tahoe City, CA, and skied at Palisades Tahoe as a kid. He was a teenager when he made the U.S. Ski Team. In the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, he finished 17th (Super G-Men) and 19th (Downhill - Men). In the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, he finished 16th (Downhill - Men) and 17th (Super Combined - Men).

His goal for 2026? 

"My ideal year this year would be have an insane season, which is doable. Win the Olympics, take your trophies, and put them deep in the basement. And then go on and live your life," Bennett said.

Bryce is known for a few things off the snow. One, he has a lot of hobbies, including fishing. You'll see as many "big ole fish" pictures on his Instagram feed as you do ski runs. The second is his incredible sense of humor.

And that's why I picked Bryce to lead off our launch of Dying to Ask: The Road to Milan-Cortina.

Get ready to laugh out loud as Bryce describes what it's like to be a pro skier when you're 6 feet 7 inches tall. Find out why being a parent as a winter Olympic athlete is like being a unicorn on the U.S. Olympic Team. And get some perspective on why being in tunnel vision with a goal is pointless.

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Stressed out? Try drinking a glass of water.

Dehydration can mimic the symptoms of anxiety.

Being properly hydrated is good for your energy, fitness and skin. It's just as important for your stress levels.

A recent article in Women's Health broke down a study on the effects of being under-hydrated on anxiety and future health.

Abigail Cuffey is the executive editor of Women's Health.

"The researchers ultimately found that those who were drinking lower levels of fluids, lower levels of water — they had a bigger reaction to stress, and they put them through various stress tests. And those who were less hydrated had a bigger reaction, had a more powerful reaction to stress," Cuffey said.

We've always known proper hydration is key for good energy, fitness and skin. Now we know it can impact mood. Think of your water bottle as another tool, like meditation, to control stress.

"Now, is it going to magically take away all of your problems? I wish it could remove all the stress. But it really can help, and these really simple, easy things that we do also just make us feel like we're in control," Cuffey said.