Jordan Stolz Breaks Track Record Again In World Cup 1500m Win In Stavanger
by Paul Bowker
Jordan Stolz is back on top, setting a Track Record in Stavanger, Norway for the second consecutive year. His win brought Team USA’s weekend medal count up to five, with two of those being Gold medals.
On Sunday, Stolz won the Men’s 1500m in a track-record time of 1 minute, 44.67 seconds for his first World Cup win of the season. It was the same venue and event in which Stolz captured his first career World Cup win a year ago with a time of 1:44.89.
“I was kind of hurting at the 700m (split), but I was able to pull out a good last lap,” Stolz said. “I figured it was faster than my record last year, so I was feeling pretty good. I knew it was a hard time to beat.”
Olympic Champion Erin Jackson won a pair of medals, capturing a Silver medal in the Women’s 500m and winning a Gold medal with Kimi Goetz and Sarah Warren in the Women’s Team Sprint.
Mia Kilburg Manganello added a Bronze medal in the Women’s Mass Start, reaching the podium in her signature event for the second time this season.
Rounding out the medals were Austin Kleba, Cooper McLeod and Zach Stoppelmoor, who teamed up to win a Silver medal in the Men’s Team Sprint.
The U.S. has won 21 long track medals in three World Cup stops so far this season.
Stolz, who reached the podium three times at last month’s World Cup in Obihiro, Japan, captured his second 1500m medal of the season. He finished second in the season-opening race in Obihiro, coming in just 0.02 seconds from Gold. Sunday, Stolz had a blistering final lap to hold off three-time Olympic Champion Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands by 0.67 seconds, pumping his fist triumphantly after he crossed the finish line.
Following his win in the 1500m, Stolz was presented with the prestigious Oscar Mathisen Award as the world’s best skater in 2022-23, when he became the first man to win three individual titles at a World Single Distance Championships.
Stolz also had wins in the 1000m and 500m B Group in Stavanger. His time of 1:08.47 in the 1000m was fast enough that it would have won the A Group race. He will compete in the A Group races this weekend in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland.
Skating in the eighth pair of athletes, Jackson was the first to break 38 seconds in the Women’s 500m with a time of 37.75 seconds. Kim Min-sun of South Korea eventually bested Jackson by just 0.02 seconds for the Gold medal. Jackson has won four medals, including two Golds, in five 500m races this season.
“Such small margins,” Jackson said. “That’s the excitement of the 500m when everyone’s super good. Of course I’d like to win, but Kim is just an amazing athlete.”
A Gold medal did arrive for Jackson in the last event of Sunday’s competition, the Women’s Team Sprint. Jackson, Warren and Goetz won the race with a time of 1:27.92, topping the World Cup leader, the Netherlands, and Canada.
“It’s nice just because it’s a team vibe, being able to achieve something with your teammates and your friends,” Jackson said. “I love doing the Team Sprint.”
This win marked the first World Cup medal for Warren. "Winning a World Cup medal has always been a goal of mine, but having the first medal be a gold and winning it with two of the fastest skaters and best teammates in the world was surreal." Warren said. "Being able to stand on the top of the podium on the world stage was a feeling I will never forget and hopefully one that will happen again soon."
“Our strategy was to have everyone skate the right number of laps!” Joked Goetz said. “But with it being the first time skating the three of us, I think we just wanted to have a clean race and we can now see what we can build on moving forward. And it was really special for Erin and me to be part of Sarah’s first World Cup medal!”
Goetz nearly won a pair of other medals, finishing fourth in both the 500m with a time of 38.29 seconds and the 1000m with a time of 1:15.88. Two-time Olympic Bronze medalist Brittany Bowe placed fifth in the 1500m and sixth in the 1000m.
Two weeks after Kleba, McLeod and Stoppelmoor won the Men’s Team Sprint in Beijing, the trio finished second to Norway with a time of 1:19.49.
“Going into the race we knew that other teams would try to replicate what we did at World Cup 2, so the goal was to clean up our execution.” McLeod said. “We kept it to simple things like clean corner entries and exits and it paid off.”
Three other U.S. men captured top-10 finishes. Ethan Cepuran and Conor McDermott-Mostowy finished eighth and 10th, respectively, in the Mass Start. Casey Dawson was 10th in the 10000m.
The World Cup tour resumes Dec. 8-10 in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland for the final World Cup of the fall circuit.
Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic and Paralympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to USSpeedskating.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.