MILAN — There’s a reason that the 500 meters was the race that most worried Jordan Stolz’s 75-year-old coach coming into these Olympics.
Bob Corby knew that this was the distance where the indomitable American phenom can look vulnerable against elite competition.
And yet, Stolz kept alive his pursuit of four Olympic gold medals by the slimmest of margins on Saturday night after he summoned an extra gear at exactly when he needed it most. His time of 33.79, an Olympic record, was just enough to hold off second-place Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands by .11. Laurent Dubreuil of Canada took bronze.
Going head-to-head against one of his fiercest challengers, de Boo, once again brought out the best in Stolz.
Stolz is now halfway to securing the most speedskating gold medals at one Olympics since fellow Wisconsin native Eric Heiden won a mind-blowing five at the 1980 Lake Placid Games. Still remaining for Stolz are the 1,500 on Thursday and the chaotic, unpredictable mass start event two days later.
For Stolz, overcoming the array of impossibly fast sprinters in the 500 was potentially his most significant hurdle.
Whereas Stolz has dominated the 1,000 and the 1,500 since rocketing onto the global scene three-plus years ago, he is more susceptible at a shorter distance that rewards pure speed rather than speed endurance. Stolz has won five of nine 500s contested at World Cup events so far this season. Skaters like de Boo, Damian Żurek of Poland and Kim Jun-Ho of South Korea have shown the ability to beat him.
The way that Tuesday’s 1,000 unfolded highlighted the challenge that Stolz faced. His strategy going into that race was to try to be even with de Boo at the 600-meter mark, but when the bell sounded he trailed by four tenths of a second. While Stolz threw down a blistering final lap to surge past de Boo and secure his first career Olympic gold, his mid-race deficit raised questions about how he’d fare in the 500.
“That is a concern,” Corby acknowledged earlier this week in a conversation with Yahoo Sports. “What that race did is it showed that he’s probably going to have a good 1,500. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to have a good 500. And Jenning was flying, so I think he’s going to put down a fast time on Saturday.”
Thankfully for Corby, Stolz was faster. And now the 21-year-old American has a second gold medal to put around his neck with the possibility of more still to come.
