Jutta Leerdam: The trailblazing speed skating star that is fuelled by doubters
Find out why individuality is the key to the Dutch world champion and social media star's meteoric rise, as she chases Olympic gold at Milano Cortina 2026.
Speed Skating
Dutch speed skating phenom Jutta Leerdam has never been one to follow the crowd.
For starters, despite competing in a sport that does not boast global mainstream popularity, she did the seemingly impossible by building a social media following in the millions.
When she started dating YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in 2023, many questioned whether the Olympic silver medallist could maintain a long-distance relationship - including travelling to his fights across the globe - and compete at the top level of speed skating.
The 26-year-old proved all the doubters wrong by winning several world, European and domestic titles.
It’s no wonder the Dutch media often refer to Leerdam as the "world's most omnipresent speed skater," a nod to her astonishing ability to balance elite competition with a magnetic public persona.
In 2024, the continental champion made the bold decision not to compete for a professional team and was vindicated with victory in the Dutch national championships in December 2024.
Using these recent successes as a springboard, she is determined to make more history as an Olympic champion at Milano Cortina 2026.
Jutta Leerdam: Speed skating's "Little Bomb"
Leerdam’s individualistic personality was evident as a six-year-old athlete growing up in ‘s-Gravenzande, South Holland.
After initially impressing as a hockey player and being selected for representative sides, her parents decided that the regular long-distance travel to the nation’s capital, The Hague, to train was not an option.
Speed skating enjoys enormous popularity in the Netherlands and is responsible for the vast majority of the European nation’s Winter Olympic gold medals.
Leerdam started competing in the winter sport aged 11 and never looked back.
“In the end I was happy with that because with hockey it would have been more difficult to excel than with an individual sport like skating. You can play hockey like crazy and still lose. It is difficult to measure one's own performance; it is all about the opinions of others. With skating you go fast or not, you set a time. And it never lies. You have complete control over the outcome,” she told Masters Expo.
However, while she enjoyed the greater sense of self-determination offered in an individual sport, her natural ability initially carried her through in the absence of the correct technique.
“When I started it's safe to say it didn't look right! But I did have a lot of strength and endurance. My father called me 'little bomb' because I was always running around.”
After two years of skating, Leerdam was invited to attend a talent development programme in her region and things started to progress quickly.
“I started training six times a week. What I like about skating is that you never stop learning. You are always trying to get better. Even if you've been skating for many years, you still don't do it perfectly. It's that difficult.”
She became a renowned junior skater globally, and at the 2017 World Junior Championships, the 18-year-old took the Allround and 1500m crowns.
Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands looks on after she competes in the Women's 1000m Sprint at the ISU World Sprint Speed Skating Championships Heerenveen at Ice Rink Thialf
Things picked up a notch in 2019.
In her first year competing in the senior ranks, Leerdam became the Dutch sprint champion and won her first world title in the team sprint event alongside Letitia de Jong and Janine Smit.
A year later in Salt Lake City, the skating prodigy helped defend that title alongside de Jong and Femke Kok, before securing her first individual world title in 1000m Sprint, a title she would win again in 2023 on home ice in Heerenveen.
Unsurprisingly, she has been the dominant figure in European speed skating, amassing five gold medals in the Sprint and 1000m events to date.
Jutta Leerdam's changing teams
Despite achieving so much success, Leerdam has never been afraid to change her training environment to optimise performance.
Speed skating is a professional sport in the Netherlands and most of the top athletes are contracted to compete for a privately-owned franchise.
Leerdam made a huge decision in 2020 to leave Team Reggeborgh, with whom she had achieved so much, to set up Team Worldstream.
It was another controversial move but brought rewards on the ice, as she took home the 1000m silver medal from her Winter Olympic debut at Beijing 2022.
Later that year, she signed with the Jumbo-Visma Skating team, which also hosted Dutch aces like Jorrit Bergsma and Thomas Krol.
These moves not only illustrated her desire to be the best skater, but also a desire to leverage her growing following beyond the rink and celebrate her individuality.
"If I hadn't set up my own team, I would not be where I am now. I have changed a lot in my career and I have learned a lot from that,” she said at the time.
“I have the freedom here [at Jumbo-Visma] to develop myself as a brand, as a person and as a skater. They were enthusiastic about me as a skater and they still saw a lot of potential. I'm not just a skater, I can also bring something else with me. I don't see that as extra pressure or something negative. They see added value in me, in different areas.”
In 2024, Leerdam made another headline-grabbing decision in opting not to join a team and compete as an individual athlete.
While the move carried risks as she wouldn’t have an official team infrastructure to rely on, but allowed her greater freedom to decide her schedule.
"I decided to go solo this year, a decision that turned the past few months into a tunnel vision, focus on improvement and being a better athlete in every aspect every day," she posted on her Instagram at the time.
She started working on an ad-hoc basis with her previous coach Kosta Poltavets and the Novus international team in order to ensure that she still had some competitive training sessions with other sprinters like Dione Voskamp and Naomi Verkerk.
Next goal: Winter Olympic gold at Milano Cortina 2026
After an inconsistent start to the 2024/25 World Cup, mainly caused by a lingering ankle injury, many onlookers started questioning Leerdam’s new set-up and travel schedule, including a trip to Texas to support Paul in his fight against Mike Tyson.
But those doubters provided all the fuel Leerdamm needed to rediscover her best form.
After taking silver in Beijing, she finished the 2024 season with victory in the 1000m at the Dutch National Championships.
That victory proved two points.
Firstly, it showed that far from hindering her progress, Leerdam’s individualism is one of the key drivers behind her drive to win.
And secondly, it demonstrated that the Flying Dutchwoman is capable of achieving her ultimate goal — winning gold at the Winter Olympics Milano Cortina 2026.