BEIJING — Jane Stolz is a dental hygienist by trade, but over the past dozen years she has also become an expert in automotive interiors and ice rink parking lots. “I sleep, eat, work, do my taxes—everything—sitting in my car,” she says. Whatever fills the hours until another practice ends.
On this afternoon in late January, however, the Kewaskum, Wisc., mother of two has just returned home from nearby Madison, where her 17-year-old son picked out a fresh set of four-pound, diamond-coated, steel sharpening stones to ship overseas for his star-dusted Winter Olympics debut. This is the first indication that speedskating’s next prodigy isn’t anything like other kids his age, let alone the world-class athletes with whom he will soon share the oval in Beijing. “He sharpens his own equipment,” Jane Stolz explains. “Even US Speedskating is like, there’s no Olympian who does all their blade work.”
Patrick McDermott/USA TODAY Sports
