MILWAUKEE — Having already pre-qualified for four events on the U.S. Olympic men’s speed skating team — the 500-, 1,000- and 1,500-meters and the mass start — Jordan Stolz was supposed to enjoy a happy, festive homecoming weekend. With the U.S. trials being held at Milwaukee’s Pettit National Ice Center, it meant that Stolz, a Wisconsin native, could meet up with old friends and chill a little.
What nobody could have counted on was that Stolz would get the chills, causing him to be dehydrated and off his game at Saturday’s 1,000-meter event. Even worse, Stolz took a rare stumble early in the race. Given his speed skating mastery throughout 2025, shocking might be a better word. Though he righted himself and put things into high gear, as one might have expected from this 21-year-old who’s now considered to be the world’s best speed skater, he still finished in third place with a time of 1 minute, 7.968 seconds, trailing first-place Conor McDermott-Mostowy (1:07.606) — by 0.36 of a second — and Cooper McLeod (1:07.845). On the strength of their finishes, McDermott-Mostowy and McLeod secured their first trip to the Olympics.
As for Stolz, he was there before, in Beijing in 2022 as a mostly unknown 17-year-old. Now he’s a very well-known 21-year-old on the cusp of Olympic stardom, what with being a two-time world champion in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500, even if he didn’t look it on Saturday.
Stolz cut right to the chase when asked about his early stumble. “Nothing with the ice,” he said, which will come as comforting news to the folks who run the Pettit National Ice Center. What a bummer it would have been had the world’s best speed skater been taken down by a rut on his home ice.
Jordan Stolz will be a medal contender across several events at the Milan-Cortina Olympics next month. (Christian Kaspar-Bartke / International Skating Union via Getty Images)
“I was feeling a little dehydrated in my legs, and I got a little wide on one of the stops and toe-picked,” Stolz said. “Got up pretty quick … it was a good race.”
All things considered, it was an outstanding race. And a reassuring one as well; before spectators could register what had happened and mull possible consequences, Stolz was up and on his way.
“I saw him fall and then pop back up like a champ, and, yeah, finish like a champ,” said Erin Jackson, who finished first in the women’s 1,000-meter event and will be returning to the Olympics with longtime pal Brittany Bowe, who finished second in the race and will be making her fourth trip to the Olympics.
“Jordan’s a really awesome skater, and I’m glad he was protected in that moment,” said Jackson of Stolz’s pre-qualification. Jackson speaks from some personal experience here, even if she wasn’t thinking that way at the time Stolz was tumbling. During the 2022 trials, it was Jackson who slipped — in the 500 — and wouldn’t have earned an Olympic spot had Bowe not given up her spot to Jackson, who went on to Beijing and made history when she emerged as the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics. The incident led U.S. speed skating to change its qualifying procedures, removing the pressure of a one-and-done trials race for skaters of such obvious credentials as Stolz and Jackson.
“I actually didn’t even relate (Stolz’s fall) to my issue until another person I was watching with me said, ‘Oh, just like you,’” Jackson said. “And I was, like, ‘OK, I guess, except I wasn’t pre-qualified and I actually didn’t make the team when that happened, except for Brittany coming to my rescue.”
McDermott-Mostowy, who was paired with Stolz in the 1,000 and is obviously thrilled to make the Olympic team, had this to say about Stolz’s fall: “That sucks. I’m glad that he was already qualified. He ended up getting third, but he obviously wanted to put together a cleaner race than that. But that’s just how it goes sometimes. That’s racing. … He handled it very impressively. He handled it like the many-times world champion that he is. That was really cool to see, and he should be very confident going into the Games.”
These cheers from McDermott-Mostowy and Jackson illustrate the camaraderie that exists in the United States speed skating community, which by all accounts will be sending one of its finest all-time collections of talent to the Olympics. As for any disappointment from the hometown crowd over Stolz taking that little tumble, it’s not like the pride of Kewaskum, Wisc., showed up at Pettit this weekend looking to set any (more) world records.
“This is training,” said Jane Stolz, Jordan’s mother.
“He’s still training,” said Dirk Stolz, Jordan’s father.
“Training to get to his peak at the Olympics,” Jane Stolz said.
It was, then, win-win for everyone. The crowd got to see Jordan Stolz collect himself and chase after McDermott-Mostowy in the heat. Even with that little blip on his radar, even fighting off a cold, he still finished third among 33 contestants.
And for Wisconsin folks and speed skating aficionados who can’t get enough of Stolz, he’ll still be competing in the 500, 1,500 and mass start before these trials are over.