Jordan Stolz Strikes For 3 Gold Medals In Historic World Championships Performance

A speedy final lap Sunday completed the golden trifecta for American long track speed skater Jordan Stolz.

After having already made history with a pair of wins at the ISU World Speed Skating Championships in Heerenveen, Netherlands, Stolz was nearly half a second off the leader’s time entering the last lap of the Men’s 1500m. He then blasted through that final lap to win the event and become the first man to win the 500m, 1000m and 1500m races in a single World Championships.

“I guess I wrote some history,” Stolz said.

Stolz, an 18-year-old from Wisconsin who made his Olympic debut last year, began his skate into history on Friday when his win in the 500m made him the youngest in history to win a single distance world title. He won that race in 34.10 seconds, defeating Canada Olympian Laurent Dubreuil by .36 seconds and missing the track record by just .03 seconds.

“There’s a point in the turn where I just let off the gas, when I enter the lean, and then there’s just a point where I could keep building. I think it was a perfect race,” Stolz said.

Stolz added a win in the 1000m Saturday, finishing in 1:07.11 and defeating reigning Olympic champion Thomas Krol of the Netherlands by .67 seconds.

Sunday, Stolz won the 1500m with a time of 1:43.59, defeating three-time Olympic Champion Kjeld Nuis and a group of Dutch skaters who placed second, third and fourth. Stolz’s final lap of 27.77 seconds was the fastest final lap of the field. Nuis skated in the pairing following Stolz’s race, meaning Stolz had to play a waiting game.

“I was worried,” Stolz said. “But, yeah, I just had confidence in the last lap and I just had a little bit on him.”

Stolz began the season by winning a Gold medal while setting a Track Record in the Men’s 1500m at Stavanger, Norway, in the process becoming the youngest man to win a World Cup race. He never slowed down. In addition to his world cup success, he also won three U.S. titles, set a Junior World Record and won four Junior World Titles, including individually in the 500m, 1000m and 1500m.

A pair of U.S. women’s teams also reached the podium in Heerenveen.

McKenzie Browne, Olympic Champion Erin Jackson and 2022 Olympian Kimi Goetz teamed up to finish second in the Women’s Team Sprint on Thursday. They posted a time of 1:26.58 to finish behind Canada (1:26.29).

One day later, Olympians Mia Manganello Kilburg, Giorgia Birkeland and Brittany Bowe finished third in the Women’s Team Pursuit to capture a Bronze medal. They had a time of 3:00.39, finishing behind Canada and Japan.

Goetz and Bowe nearly made the podium in the Women’s 1000m, finishing fourth and fifth, respectively, with times of 1:14.48 and 1:14.68. Jackson was ninth, finishing in 1:15.63. Goetz also had top-10 finishes in the 1500m and 500m, placing sixth in the 1500m with a time of 1:55.26 and eighth in the 500m with a time of 37.89 seconds.

Manganello Kilburg was just 0.3 seconds from a podium finish in the Women’s Mass Start, placing fourth with a time of 8:34.67.

Jackson, the defending Olympic champ in the Women’s 500, finished fifth in that event with a time of 37.62 seconds. Bowe, a two-time Olympic medalist, was ninth in the 1500m in 1:55.67.

Cooper McLeod, Austin Kleba and Conor McDermott-Mostowy combined for a sixth-place finish in the Men’s Team Sprint with a time of 1:21.02, and Olympic Bronze medalists Emery Lehman, Ethan Cepuran and Casey Dawson were seventh in the Men’s Team Pursuit. They had a time of 3:58.10.

McLeod chased down a 10th-place finish in the Men’s 1000m with a time of 1:08.82 and was 11th in the 10000m with a time of 13:22.32.

Cepuran had the other 10th-place finish for the U.S. men in the Mass Start, finishing in 7:31.85, two spots ahead of McDermott-Mostowy.

Cepuran and Dawson finished 12th and 14th, respectively, in the Men’s 5000m. Dawson was 16th and Lehman ended in 19th in the historic Men’s 1500m race won by Stolz.