American teenager Jordan Stolz won the men’s 1000m at the world speed skating championships on Saturday, one day after taking first in the 500m to become the youngest world champion in history.
The 18-year-old who has been touted as America’s next speed skating star crossed first in a time of 1min 7.11sec at the hallowed Thialf ice arena in Heerenveen, 0.67sec faster than Olympic champion Thomas Krol of the Netherlands. Cornelius Kersten won the bronze, claiming Great Britain’s first international speed skating medal since 1951.
“I think it was almost perfect,” said Stolz, who finished two hundredths of a second off Pavel Kulizhnikov’s track record set in 2020. “Like 99%. Maybe there’s one thing that could have been done better. On the backstretch, I kind of went a little wide after entering the draft [behind Hein Otterspeer], and I chased him a little bit.”
Now Stolz will attempt to become the first man to win three individual golds at a single distance worlds in Sunday’s 1500m.
“I think I have a good chance in it,” Stolz said. “Hopefully [the 500m and 1000m] doesn’t take too much snap out of my legs. ... If I can get three for three, that would be the end-of-the-season celebration.”
The Wisconsin native is penning a remarkable finish to what was already an extraordinary breakthrough campaign. After opening the season in Stavanger, Norway, by setting a track record and becoming the youngest man to win an individual World Cup race, Stolz went on to dominate 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’s now become only the third speed skater in history to win both junior and senior world titles in the same season, joining Eric Heiden (1977 and 1978) and Beth Heiden (1979).
