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In the last weekend in Heerenveen, in the Netherlands, there were the speed skating World Championships during which the 18-year-old American Jordan Stolz proved to be the best skater in the world. In three days Stolz made his debut at the World Championships and won three gold medals: in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 meters. He thus became the youngest ever winner in the history of the competition (which has existed in this form since the 1990s) and the first to win three gold medals in one edition. It was already known that Stolz was strong, but the tranquillity, authority and detachment with which he beat his opponents surprised many observers.
Stolz is now spoken of as a phenomenal athlete, who does things that others are unable to do again, let alone understand; as a possible heir to the American figure skater Eric Heiden (who won five gold medals in one Olympics in 1980) and as a possible ruler of ice speed skating for the next decade. All this while it is still not clear what and how much he has room for improvement. “I didn’t expect to skate so much faster than the best in the world,” Stolz told Dutch television, “but somehow I’m doing it.”
Outside the Stolz ice arenas, talks began a little over a year ago, when not yet of age and with a few youth and national records behind him, he qualified for the Olympics, where he obtained a thirteenth and a fourteenth place.
In this World Cup season, in which he has participated in five of the six scheduled stages, he has won three races, finished on the podium several times and finished in the top five in the general classifications of 500, 1,000 and 1,500 metres: the three fastest disciplines of speed skating, in which one turns two at a time on a 400-metre long oval track and in which the ranking is obtained based on the time of each athlete on a single trial. In short, he skates only once for each distance, without the possibility of errors or calculations.
In February Stolz had also participated in the Youth World Championships, from which he returned with five golds and two bronzes: one in the 5,000-metre endurance race, and the other in the mass start, in which everyone competes together over 16 laps. , with intermediate sprints.
Until four days ago Stolz was therefore promising and extremely dominant among the young players but not yet “the best” in absolute terms. He became one in three days. On Friday he covered the 500 meters on the ice of the Thialf, often described as a “cathedral” of ice skating, in the most passionate province (Friesland) of the most passionate and successful country in the sport (the Netherlands): he finished the race in just over 34 seconds, 3 tenths less than the second, the Canadian Laurent Dubreuil, who he defined it «from another world», who compared him to Michael Jordan and who added: «Even if I had done a perfect race, I would still have finished second».
WOW 😱
Jordan Stolz 🇺🇸 became the youngest speed skater ever to win 🥇 at the World Single Distances Championships 🔥
The 18-year-old junior 2023 World champ clinched the World senior title in the 500m 🤩👏 #SpeedSkating #WorldSpeed pic.twitter.com/cjo5M3LkNJ
— ISU Speed Skating (@ISU_Speed) March 3, 2023
On Saturday Stolz won the 1,000m race over 6 tenths ahead of second, reigning Olympic champion Thomas Krol. On Sunday he won in the 1,500 meters ahead of Dutchman Kjeld Nuis, also the reigning Olympic champion. On 500 and 1,000 meters Stolz also set the second best time ever on a track at sea level (altitude helps athletes, especially on short efforts like these).
After his three victories the Dutch newspaper The Telegraph he wrote: «The American rewrote the rules of skating and completed the trilogy, winning his first two competitions with clear supremacy; these days the superlatives were flying all around him». In presenting him as “the main responsible for the shortage of men’s gold medals for the Netherlands” (to which the Italian Davide Ghiotto, winner of the 10,000 meters, also made a significant contribution), The Telegraph spoke of Stolz as a “boy prodigy”.
(Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
However, Stolz’s recent and surprising results come from afar, and are the result of several things: over the years, the right opportunities have been added to an undoubted base of talent, not indifferent support and an out of the ordinary dedication.
Stolz lives with his family in Kewaskum, a small town in Wisconsin, three quarters of an hour’s drive from Milwaukee, where there is the skating rink where he trains and where a skating team with a few dozen members is based . The father, a policeman of German origins, says that his son began ice skating at the age of five with his older sister on the pond behind the house which, given the Wisconsin climate, was often frozen. Within a few years Stolz was competing, and when he was nine his parents decided to homeschool him. All this despite the fact that there are still those who say they do remember it “skeletal” and “not very fast”.
(Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
Since he trains alone, with a personal coach, in a different place than most of his national teammates, his parents continue to have a rather active role: his mother, for example, is used to filming his training sessions with a video camera , so that he can then analyze them.
Stolz he recounted that, as far as he is concerned, his rise in ice skating “was always planned” but that became more concrete a couple of years ago, when muscular strength was added to his innate technique, the result of growth and dozens of hours weeks that he says he dedicates to training, most of which without skates on his feet. Those who have known him for a few years remember that a couple of summers ago, between one season and another, Stolz grew a few centimeters and put on a few kilos of muscle.
In short, the muscles and the height are added to the genetics (for example the length of his legs and in particular of the of the thigh) and to his technical skills, which in the recent World Cup were seen in the curves, in particular in the last curve of the 500 meters on Friday, which a former Dutch skater he defined “the best ever skated”, done at about 60 kilometers per hour of speed, yet with great balance and composure. International teammate Joey Mantia he said of him who “knows how to feel the skates very well” and who above all, while skating, “thinks very little, which is ideal”.
Given the recent results, Stolz is already talking about what he could do from now on. Mantia said that “if he were to continue on this path at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics he could aim for five medals” and that in the meantime at least a couple of world records could also arrive. There is also a good chance that, over time, he will be able to adapt to distances greater than 1,500 metres. Despite being eighteen Stolz, who is described as a relaxed and sometimes even lazy boy, already seems comfortable with expectations and comparisons with Heiden.
After his three gold medals Stolz he said to believe that he still has a 20 percent improvement ahead of him from his current level.
– Read also: The Dutch passion for ice skating