Jordan Stolz’s bid for another Olympic gold medal ends as Dutch speedskaters win mass start

Jordan StolzThe bid to become the first man in 32 years to win three Olympic gold medals in long-track speed skating was fading Saturday. Well ahead in the mass start, the sport’s final event in Milan Cortina Gameswas Jorrit Bergsma, 40, who joined another skater to pull away from the pack with several laps to go.

Stolz thought someone else would try to bring back the leaders. Nobody did it. Stolz was shocked. He ended up in fourth place behind Bergsma, the oldest speed skater to win a gold medal at any Olympic Games.

“They all expected me to sue, but I wasn’t going to do that,” said Stolz, a 21-year-old from Wisconsin. “If I had raced with five laps to go, I would have blown myself out. I thought the other guys would be a little hungrier, but I guess they didn’t want to do that.”

He won his first two events in Milan, the 500 meters And 1,000 meters. Then came a silver medal in the 1,500m. After Thursday’s result, Stolz said: “I didn’t get it today. I don’t know why.”

He also didn’t have enough during the mass departure.

Dane Viktor Hald Thorup, who was initially in the lead with Bergsma, won the silver medal. Andrea Giovannini, who imitated Steph Curry’s “Night night” gesture when he helped Italy beat favorites America in the men’s team pursuit, was the bronze medalist, barely overtaking Stolz in a final sprint.

“I’m really happy for Jorrit. And I’m really happy for Viktor. Other than that, I have nothing to print. Dumbest race I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Stolz’s trainer Bob Corby. “The whole field decided, ‘Well, let’s race for the bronze medal.’ So stupid. “

Before these Olympics, there had been a lot of talk about Stolz winning a quartet of gold medals, and he was asked about it at press conferences immediately after his two victories. The last male speed skater to win three speed skating gold medals at a single Winter Games was Johann Olav Koss at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.

“Well, it’s just wonderful to have two gold medals and a silver,” Corby said. “Almost accomplished everything we wanted to do. If he had won the 1,500, I wouldn’t have worried about the mass start.”

Stolz offered a similar assessment of his second trip to the Olympics; he had results of 13th and 14th in the Beijing 2022 Games when he was 17.

“I thought it was pretty successful: two gold medals and one silver is pretty good,” he said. “There are some things that could have been better, but overall I’m pretty happy with it.”

Bergsma added this gold to his bronze in the 10,000 meters earlier in Milan. He now has a total of five Olympic medals, including gold in the 10,000m in 2014.

The women’s mass start gold medal also went to a Dutch skater: reigning world champion Marijke Groenewoud, who finished no better than seventh in her other three races. Ivanie Blondin of Canada won the silver medal for the second consecutive Games, followed by Mia Manganello of the United States with the bronze medal.

Blondin helped Canada win a second straight gold medal in the team pursuit earlier at these Olympics. Manganello, 36, this season’s mass start world champion, took a victory lap with an American flag after the final race of her career.

Bergsma and Thorup left the rest of the men’s field behind in the 16-lap race.

Eventually, Bergsma emerged alone in front, with enough of a lead to be able to race home on the home stretch, stopping to spread his arms wide, pump his fists overhead and blow kisses to the large group of Dutch spectators at the Milan speed skating stadium.

Later, while waiting to stand on the podium for the medal ceremony, Bergsma turned to Giovannini and said of the race: “I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘Is this really happening?'”

Stolz, for his part, didn’t really understand what had happened either.

“I guess you just have to expect the unexpected of what people are going to do. Like in the mass start, you would think they would want to run more to try to catch up with Jorrit, given that I already have two gold medals and the guys who are the favorites for the gold medal in the mass start didn’t want to run,” Stolz said. “So yeah, I wasn’t expecting that.”