Jordan Stolz: the U.S. teenager looking to make a mark on Olympic speed skating

The fresh-faced speedster has been one of the breakout stars this season and will be looking to get close to a podium place in the 1000m, his final event at Beijing 2022.

Jordan Stolz hardly broke a sweat as he stepped onto the ice of the National Speed Skating Oval on his debut at the Olympic Winter Games.

The 17-year-old speedskater is the youngest athlete in Team USA at Beijing 2022, but what he lacks in experience, he certainly makes up in talent and a level of composure that belies his years.

Young ice breaker

Stolz lined up in the 500m event, the shortest long-track race, as the youngest athlete among 30 of the world’s fastest men on the ice. He finished in a creditable 13th place as the top-ranked American in the field in his maiden Olympics sojourn, clocking a blistering 34.85 seconds. His time was 0.53s slower than Gao Tingyu of the People’s Republic of China’s Olympic-record winning time.

“I was pretty calm, of course, I was a little bit nervous, but it was nothing terrible,” Stolz told the Team USA website. “I knew that I wasn’t like the medal favourite, so if I just skate a good race and then see what happens, that’s all I really tried to focus on.”

Great expectations

Stolz came into Beijing 2022 with high expectations off the back of a breakout year that saw him speed to junior world records in the 500m and 1000m events.

His meteoric rise has seen him go from a promising youngster at the Winter Youth Olympic Games Lausanne 2020 to holding his own against the world’s best senior men.

The Youth Olympics – where he finished fifth in the 500m event – served as the springboard to loftier ambitions. He set out on a single-minded pursuit to reach the Olympic Winter Games.

“I always planned on it,” he said to U.S. speedskating.

“Probably two years ago, I could see it was realistic enough, especially if my progress keeps improving, and it did.”

Manifesting the dream

Two years of hard work culminated in a breakout performance at the U.S. Olympic Trials – a month before making his Olympic debut – where he smashed the junior world records at the 500m and 1000m distances to realise his dream.

Highlighting his potential, Jordan set a new 1000m track record of 1:07.62, improving the mark held by former coach and mentor, double Olympic champion Shani Davis, in Torino 2006 and Vancouver 2010.

Stolz gave his podium ambitions a shot in the arm in December 2021 when he earned his first World Cup podium in the 1000m, winning the silver medal in Calgary.

Now that he has broken the ice at his first Winter Olympics, Stolz will be looking for an improved performance in the 1000m event on Friday (18 February) from 16:30 - 17:40 (UTC+8). A top-10 finish may be looming while a podium place is not outside the realm of possibilities for the big-dreaming teenager.