Jordan Stolz Skates to Another Four Gold Medals, Two Track Records at Beijing World Cup
Share:
by Paul D. Bowker
Jordan Stolz won four World Cup races for the second consecutive week and both U.S. Sprint Teams also reached the podium as the tour’s Asian swing wrapped up over the weekend in Beijing.
Stolz, the two-time reigning World Champion in the Men’s 500m, 1000m and 1500m, remains unbeaten in the 2024-25 World Cup season with a pair of victories in the Men’s 500m to go with wins in the 1000m and 1500m. He broke two Track Records, including the 500m record set by China’s Gao Tingyu in winning that event at the Olympic Games Beijing 2022.
Over the two Asian stops on this year’s World Cup, Stolz won all eight races he started and set four Track Records — two in Beijing and two in Nagano, Japan. He returns home with a top ranking in all three distances.
“I could maybe have managed another weekend, but that’s about it,” Stolz said of the busy schedule, which also included the ISU Four Continents Speed Skating Championships in Japan on Nov. 15-17, where he also won four Gold medals and set two Track Records. “It feels like it’s catching up right now, especially in the longer distances.”
Returning to Beijing, where he made his Olympic debut two years ago, Stolz began the weekend with victories at both 500m and 1500m on Friday.
He set a Track Record in the 500m with a time of 34.27 seconds and defeated Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands by .012 seconds.
“The ice felt pretty good today, and it’s pretty quick,” Stolz said after Friday’s 500m. “So I was just a bit worried by (De Boo’s) time. I figured, physically, I would be able to beat him. I just had to be able to put it in the ice technically, and I feel I did that.”
Later the same day, Stolz won the 1500m with a time of 1:43.94. He was back on Saturday to win the 1000m in another Track Record, this time finishing in 1:07.62. The top three finishers all beat the previous Track Record of 1:07.92, set by Thomas Krol of the Netherlands at the 2022 Olympics.
Stolz topped off the weekend with a victory in the second 500m on Sunday, winning in 34.39 seconds.
Cooper McLeod combined with Austin Kleba and Zach Stoppelmoor to win a Silver medal in the Men’s Team Sprint. They finished with a time of 1:18.50, just .15 seconds behind winner the Netherlands. McLeod also had three top-five individual finishes, coming in fourth and fifth behind Stolz in the 500m races, and fifth in the 1000m.
Olympic 500m champion Erin Jackson, 2022 Olympian Kimi Goetz and three-time Olympian Brittany Bowe won a Bronze medal in the Women’s Team Sprint. They finished in 1:27.08, just .73 seconds behind winner the Netherlands and only .01 behind second-place Poland.
Individually, Jackson placed fourth and sixth in the two Women’s 500m races. She emerged from the first two World Cups with a third-place standing in the 500m.
Bowe had a pair of seventh-place finishes in the 1000m and 1500m. Goetz posted sixth- and 10th-place finishes in the 500m, to go with an eight-place finish in the 1000m. Mia Manganello added a seventh-place finish in the Women’s Mass Start.
On the men’s side, Casey Dawson placed eighth in the 5000m for the second consecutive week, and Ethan Cepuran was ninth in the Mass Start.
The World Cup Tour is off until Jan. 24-26, when it returns to action in Calgary, Canada.
Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic and Paralympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to USSpeedskating.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
