At the age of 18, Jordan Stolz already looks like one of the most dominant winter sports athletes on the planet.
On Sunday, he finished an extraordinary few days of success by becoming the first man to win three individual golds at a single distance world speed skating championships. His victory in the 1500m went alongside earlier wins in the 500m and 1000m. His time of 1 minute, 43.59 seconds on Sunday in the 1500m was good enough to beat double Olympic champion Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands by 23 hundredths of a second.
UNBEATABLE 🔥
— ISU Speed Skating (@ISU_Speed) March 5, 2023
After winning 500m and 1000m gold 🏆, Jordan Stolz 🇺🇸 clinched the 1500m title 🥇 to become the first male speed skater to earn three individual gold medals at a world single distances championships 👏 #SpeedSkating #WorldSpeed pic.twitter.com/WjC0kQA2qg
“I felt really good this weekend, better than I have all year, and also peaking too,” Stolz told the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal after Sunday’s race. “With all the races earlier in the year, and a lot of hard training, I came here and I just rested for 10 days. And I just felt super good on the ice. So technically, yeah, I think it was the best time ever skated, especially in the 500 and 1000. The 1500 was pretty good - near perfect.”
His win in the 500m on Friday had made him the youngest gold medalist in the history of the world single distance championships.
Stolz took up skating on his family’s three-acre backyard pond in the small Wisconsin village of Kewaskum, about 45 minutes north of Milwaukee. He had been inspired by watching Apolo Anton Ohno’s short-track exploits at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics on television. After initially training in short track, he moved toward the long track after a few years and began winning national championships when he was in fifth grade.
Since becoming the youngest man to win an individual World Cup race in November and setting a track record in doing so, Stolz further delivered on his enormous promise by dominating last month’s junior world championships, sweeping the 500m, 1000m and 1500m while adding bronze medals in the other two individual events: the 5000m and mass start. He also won gold in the men’s team sprint.
He is now only the third speed skater in history to win the junior and senior world titles in the same season, joining Eric Heiden (1977 and 1978) and Beth Heiden (1979).
