Gold medallist Jordan Stolz of the U.S. celebrates after the lads’s 1,000 meters speedskating race on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.
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Ben Curtis/AP
MILAN — Jordan Stolz pictured this second most of his life, ever since he was 5 and studying to skate on a frozen pond in his Wisconsin yard after falling in love with speedskating whereas watching the 2010 Winter Olympics on TV — and hoping to at some point step atop the rostrum himself.
So what was the little problem of a 10-plus-minute wait to verify this primary speedskating gold medal formally can be his Wednesday? Particularly as a result of, as Stolz would say later, “I didn’t think anybody was going to beat that time.”
Stolz wanted to carry off on a celebratory lap with a U.S. flag till one other competitor bought the prospect for a re-skate, then quickly sufficient was capable of smile whereas leaning ahead to obtain his gold for profitable the lads’s 1,000 meters on the Milan Cortina Video games in an Olympic-record time due to a blistering closing stretch.
“It was just a feeling like, ‘You finally did it,'” mentioned the 21-year-old Stolz, who was trailing silver medalist Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands with 400 meters to go. “It almost doesn’t seem real, right?”
Stolz’s father, Dirk, plowed away snow on their pond all these years in the past in order that little Jordan and his older sister, Hannah, might skate — over the objections of their mom, Jane. Once they all gathered after Wednesday’s race, Dirk mentioned, “He showed me (the medal) and said, ‘I finally got it!'”
Jordan Stolz of the U.S. competes to win the gold medal within the males’s 1,000 meters speedskating race on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.
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Now Stolz will hope to maintain going and add to his assortment of trophies: He is entered in three extra occasions in Milan.
“Well, it’s hard to say, ‘Oh, I could win four gold medals,’ when you haven’t won one yet. Now that I’ve won one, I kind of know what to expect and can kind of feel like how the crowd is, with the energy, and the ice,” he mentioned. “So it’s going to be good.”
Skating within the next-to-last pairing at Milano Velocity Skating Stadium, a short lived facility constructed for these Olympics, Stolz completed in 1 minute, 6.28 seconds.
That did not threaten his world report of 1:05.37 however did higher the Olympic normal of 1:07.18 that stood since 2002. All 4 lengthy monitor speedskating races in Milan have been received within the quickest occasions ever turned in at an Olympics.
De Boo ended up a half-second slower; nobody else got here inside a full second of Stolz. Zhongyan Ning of China bought the bronze.
“He’s just a killer on the last lap,” mentioned Bob Corby, Stolz’s coach.
Stolz’s medal was his first at this stage: As a 17-year-old on the 2022 Beijing Video games, he was 14th within the 1,000 and thirteenth within the 500.
It additionally was the primary medal of any kind within the males’s 1,000 for america because the 2010 Vancouver Video games. That is when Shani Davis — a mentor and, at one level, a coach to Stolz — received his second consecutive gold in that occasion, and Chad Hedrick bought the bronze. Dutch males had received the 1,000 at every of the previous three Winter Video games.
Snoop canine and five-time olympic gold medallist former velocity skater Eric Heiden of the U.S. watch the lads’s 1,000 meters speedskating race on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.
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With Eric Heiden, the one speedskater to win 5 golds at one Olympics, sitting subsequent to rapper Snoop Dogg within the stands, Stolz pulled forward of de Boo by the point one full lap was performed. Then de Boo moved in entrance and was nonetheless there on the 600-meter mark.
However Stolz zoomed forward across the closing nook and crossed the road first along with his arms on his knees, then rose for an understated pump of his proper hand.
“I had high hopes. But his last lap is just incredible,” de Boo mentioned. “I heard him coming at 800 meters, and then I just knew it was too late.”
Stolz entered the day as an enormous favourite.
He holds the 1,000 world report and is a two-time world champion on the distance. Plus, he went 5-for-5 on the World Cup circuit this season within the occasion, confirming his standing as the person to beat on the Olympics.
“Everything up until today was nothing. It was just: ‘Eh, it’s a regular meet.’ We get ready. We get set. We rest. And we’re skating good in practices,” Corby mentioned. “After he sat down after the race, he was kind of like, ‘Wow. This is a pretty big deal.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, it is.'”
Up subsequent: Stolz races the five hundred on Saturday, the 1,500 on Feb. 19, and the mass begin on Feb. 21.
Stolz’s title is commonly talked about alongside that of Heiden, the one speedskater to say 5 lengthy monitor gold medals at a single Winter Video games. On the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, Heiden received the five hundred, 1,000, 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000.
Stolz is flattered to listen to such comparisons but additionally fast to notice that what Heiden achieved was remarkably completely different, overlaying 5 distances. Stolz may add the longer occasions to his repertoire down the street; for now, he’s the most effective there’s within the sprints.
“One gold medal is huge enough, right? It would be super nice to have two, three, right?” Stolz mentioned. “But just having one means a lot.”
