Another Olympic Record for Jordan Stolz in Men’s 500m Final

The fastest man on ice secured another piece of hardware in these games.

Jordan Stolz narrowly edged out a 33.77 second finish time to secure the gold medal in the Men’s 500m final. Stolz was a foot faster than Dutch skating pair partner Jenning de Boo, who posted a 33.88 finish time.

Stolz, who already has the gold medal for the men’s 1000m earlier in these games, came into this event as the gold medal favorite, but things really heated up when Canadian Laurent Dubreuil sped his way to a 34.26 second finish time. That was the Olympic record until Stolz shattered it three pairs later. Dubreuil finished with the bronze medal. After setting his record time, Stolz had to wait for two more pairs to finish before his gold medal could be secured.

Much has been made about Jordan Stolz’s speedskating, which got its start when he watched American speedskaters Apollo Anton Ohno and Shani Davis in the Vancouver 2010 games. Stolz and his sister Hannah had to persuade his mother to let them try it. They would skate around in their backyard pond once it froze over enough each winter.

The speedskating competitions in these games have been the tightest yet for the athletes. Nearly every speedskating competition run to date has required an Olympic record to even think about medaling in the event.

The world record in this event, 33.61 seconds, was set by Pavel Kulizhnikov in 2019.

The Wisconsin native still has three more events to compete in during these games, with the men’s 1500m, men’s mass start, and men’s team pursuit.