As Jordan Stolz reached the 600-m mark of the 1000-m Olympic speedskating competition on Wednesday night in Milan, he sensed he was losing time to a rival, Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands, skating in the other lane at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium oval. The Holland-heavy crowd—something like 90% of the fans may have been wearing Dutch orange—was now in a frenzy. Stolz, already a seven-time world champion at the age of 21, is the world-record holder in the 1,000. Could he really lose this race and upend his attempt at sweeping all four of his events and putting his sport back in the American consciousness in the same way that Eric Heiden did all those years ago in Lake Placid?
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Stolz has a killer instinct on the ice. But he admitted after the race that even he was nervous at that moment. “Oh, for sure,” said Stolz. “I threw two arms down. Because I really didn’t want to lose.”
No one in the world can close like Stolz. He pushed hard in that last lap, and de Boo knew he was in trouble. “I had high hopes, but his last lap is just incredible,” said de Boo, 22. “You hear his skates coming. And it’s pretty creepy.”
Stolz crossed the finish line in 1 min., 6.28 sec., breaking an Olympic record that stood for 24 years. De Boo sat in second, a half second behind Stolz. No one else was within a second of Stolz.
Stolz couldn’t quite celebrate, however, full throttle. Another pair of skaters still had to take their two-and-a-half laps around the long-track oval, and then Joep Wennemars of the Netherlands, the 2025 world champion in the 1,000—Stolz struggled with effects from pneumonia at that event—was awarded a reskate because Chinese skater Lian Ziwen clipped his blade. He had 15 minutes to prepare. “I didn’t think he would beat my time,” said Stolz, who was correct. Wennemars was too tired on the reskate to be a threat for a medal, least of all gold. Almost immediately after Wennemars crossed the line on the reskate, finishing fifth, Stolz put the American flag over his shoulder and began his victory lap. “I was ready,” he said.
The mishap in his original race angered Wennemars: according to a translation provided by Dutch journalists, Wennemars told them he felt a medal was stolen from him. His face said it all. He looked ready to box someone. Wennemars did say that Ziwen apologized. But he’s not about to take Ziwen out to dinner.
Stolz finished with the largest margin of victory in the Olympic 1,000 m since 1984. In the Milan Speed Skating Stadium seats, Stolz’s father Dirk, who worked as a sheriff in Washington County, Wisc., before recently retiring from law enforcement after 29 years, thought back to the days shoveling snow off their frozen backyard pond, so Stolz and his sister, Hannah, could skate on it. They were inspired by watching Apolo Ohno at the Vancouver Olympics. “That’s actually what started this whole thing,” says Dirk. “And all of a sudden, you’re here 16 years later, and he won a gold medal.”
Dirk says that becoming a sheriff has crossed Jordan’s mind. As recently as a couple of years ago, he’d take his son on ride-alongs. “I always kind of told him, with athletics, you’d better have some type of backup plan,” says Dirk. “Because you just never know.”
Plan A is working just fine for Stolz, especially after this Olympic gold. Circle the 500-m race, on Feb. 14, on your calendars: de Boo beat Stolz in the 500 m at last year’s worlds, and his lead through 600 in Milan would seem to give him an advantage.
Stolz also has the 1,500 m and mass start on his calendar: four golds are still within reach. Though Heiden won five, Stolz has set himself up as his successor. Heiden sat in the front row, next to the ubiquitous Snoop Dogg, on Wednesday. “It’s really cool that I was able to win in front of both of them,” said Stolz. “I’m sure they were enjoying it. I definitely didn’t disappoint them.”
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