By John E. Gibson
Jordan Stolz is breaking through the well-known blockade of Dutch Olympic dominance at the Milan Cortina Games in Italy, but this has required historic speed skating performances.
Stolz streaked to his second gold of the Winter Games by clocking an Olympic-record 33.77 seconds to top the podium in the 500 meters on Saturday. The American again edged out Dutch star Jenning de Boo, whom Stolz defeated for gold in the 1,000-meter earlier in the week.
De Boo was left sitting on the ice and pondering the result after the best race of his life. The Netherlands skater stayed parked for moments, seemingly in disbelief that his time was only good enough for silver. He slowly accepted the outcome, pulled himself together and made his way off the ice, clearing the path for the final pair in the event to skate.
Stolz said he was more relaxed as the favorite for the gold medal as he went into his second event and had a game plan that he was able to follow, despite the Olympic record falling just ahead of his pairing.
“I just try not to think about it too much,” the 21-year-old said in his post-event media availability. “I was feeling [the pressure] kind of, going into the thousand because it was the first race. I didn’t know what to expect—different environment.
“But this one, I felt way more relaxed, and I was feeling way better on the ice—like my pressure and my pushes. And I was just going through the race in my mind, like 30 minutes before, and I tried not to think about the race for too long before, and it worked out well.”
As for the quick times posted ahead of him, Stolz said: “I knew the ice was fast when I saw that time, but thought I could probably beat that time.”
Stolz’s coach Bob Corby told Washington County Insider he did extra work to come up with a winning strategy.
“I spent probably an hour, hour and a half, last night, looking at video and analyzing times and stuff like that. And then I called him and said, ‘OK, so if you’re going to win the race, you’re going to win it on the back stretch.
“So the last corner starts at the beginning of the back stretch. So you’ve got to haul down that back stretch because you’re not going to see him, he’s going to be behind you and he’s going to be coming on you.’
“And that’s exactly what he did. And when they came out of the corner and they were pretty even, I knew Stolz was going to win.”
Stolz also set an Olympic record to win in the 1,000-meter. The silver went to de Boo both times; he clocked 33.88 in Saturday’s sprint.
Stolz, a Wisconsin native, joined American Eric Heiden as the only men to complete the 500–1,000 double at one Olympics. Heiden dominated the sport with a record sweep of all five individual events—from the 500 to the 10,000—at the 1980 Lake Placid Games.
Stolz is only entered in four events in Italy, with the 1,500 coming up on Thursday, followed by the mass start on Saturday.
Corby said that as much as Stolz wants to support his fellow athletes and soak in the experience in Italy, the Games take a huge toll that’s not only on the physical side.
When asked what the skater has on his schedule between events Corby replied: “Pretty much nothing—to the cafeteria three times and try to entertain him, doing something because he’s not even watching the other races.
“He can’t because it’s too emotionally draining to watch people trying to get gold medals and then get fourth or skate a bad race. And so, he hasn’t watched any races.”
Meanwhile in Sunday’s action, U.S. defending Olympic champion Erin Jackson skated in the final pair in the 500 but lost out on the podium as the Netherlands’ Femke Kok captured the gold medal with an Olympic record 36.49 seconds.
The time was 0.66 seconds faster than teammate Jutta Leerdam, who slid into second.
Jackson’s time of 37.32 left her in fifth place, but she was just five-hundredths of a second out of third. Four years ago, Jackson took home the gold in the 500 at the Beijing Games to become the first black woman to win an individual Winter Games title in any sport.
But after a strong start on Sunday, she ran out of gas on the back stretch and finished far behind Kok.
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