At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Phillip Dunn, an American racewalker, suddenly realized that these games would be his last competing at the highest level of the sport. 

He looked around the vast stadium and saw his parents and twin brother.

They had been there for every step of his journey, starting when he was a distance runner, then as a racewalker – all by the age of 10. They were there when he ran cross country for a small liberal arts college and when he became one of the top racewalkers in the world.

 “This is what I’m here for,” Dunn recalled telling himself.  

“This was my dream and realizing that all at that moment was super emotional.”

Dunn, now the head coach for the San Diego City College men’s cross country team, recalled this moment as he held back tears 16 years later in his office.

Dunn finished his career as a three-time Olympic racewalker and ranked No. 1 in the country in 2001, 2006 and 2008 in the 50-km race, according to the Team USA website. 

Now in his third year as head coach, Dunn is helping students grow as student-athletes and strive for opportunities at the four-year college level. 

Dunn takes an individual approach with each of the runners he coaches, noting that his athletes all have different goals and reasons they are on the team.

“So one guy, he wants to qualify for the state meet as an individual,” Dunn said. “But some of the other guys, they just want to have a fun team experience, get fit and have fun in college.

“We can do both of those things in the same program.”

David Kelling, a sophomore runner, is one of those who sees the state meet in his future.

According to Dunn, Kelling has shaved off one minute from his 5k time in the first meet of this season from his race time last year. 

“Coach Dunn’s training strategy and coaching methods are just fantastic,” Kelling said. “It’s super great for athletes to really excel in the program.” 

Although Dunn gained his cross country expertise in college, his special talent was as a racewalker. 

Dunn recalled in the interview how he discovered racewalking. 

He had just finished a 1500-meter running race and saw a racewalking event about to take place nearby. He asked his father what it was. 

“He was like, you pump your arms and you move your hips and just walk as fast as you can,” Dunn said. “I was 10 years old, and I ended up beating all of the other 10-year-olds and didn’t know what I was doing.”

Dunn continued racewalking through high school, making it to state, regional and national championships.

After graduating, he headed to Carleton College in Minnesota, which didn’t have a racewalking program, and instead returned to distance running, this time in cross country.

But with summers filled with racewalking, Dunn remained close to the event.

After college, he gave himself a timetable of one year to train full-time in racewalking in the hopes of qualifying for the national championships. 

Dunn moved to Lake Placid, N.Y., to train at the Olympic Center there. He had jobs bussing tables at a hotel and served as a teacher’s assistant at a local school to pay the bills. 

He even persuaded the director of the training facility to let him use the facility and its sports science and medicine resources if he finished as a top-six qualifier for nationals. 

Within a couple of months, he qualified for the next year’s national championships.   

Still, he had some setbacks. He finished fourth in the 1996 qualifying race for the Atlanta Olympics, where only three athletes qualified.

He thought again about going to graduate school or getting a “normal job” but instead stuck with his goal of being an Olympian.

Dunn made Olympic teams in 2000 in Sydney and again in 2004 in Athens and 2008 in Beijing. 

The Sydney games, he said, were his most memorable. 

“Sydney was the most special for a lot of reasons, mostly because it was the first one,” Dunn said. “My parents, my girlfriend at the time, who’s now my wife, my brother and my whole family came down and they were all able to take part in it and share in the experience.”

Dunn now faces a new test at City College. 

“My biggest challenge is recruiting and getting the coaches and the athletes to know that they’ve got a great program here at City,” he said. “If they want it, it’s available.”