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.

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.”

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,