Jordan Stolz’s bid for four speed-skating golds crumbles in 1500m as Ning Zhongyan shines | Winter Olympics 2026

On an afternoon when the Olympic record kept falling, Jordan Stolz skated fast enough to win the gold medal at any other Winter Games. But not this one.

The 21-year-old American was thwarted Thursday in his bid for a third gold medal in eight days, winning silver in the 1,500 in 1:42.75 after lowering the Olympic marks in the 1,000 last Wednesday and the 500 Saturday and threatening to become only the second American to win more than two gold medals in any sport at a single Winter Games.

China’s Ning Zhongyan was the surprise gold medalist, clocking an Olympic record time of 1:41.98 seconds – 0.77 seconds ahead of Stolz – after taking the race aggressively from the start. Dutchman Kjeld Nuis, the two-time reigning Olympic champion at his last Winter Games, finished 0.84 seconds off Ning’s pace for the bronze medal, to the delight of another Dutch crowd.

For Ning, 26, already a bronze medalist in the men’s 1000m and team pursuit, it was the first Olympic gold medal of his career and China’s first medal in speed skating at these Olympics.

“When Jordan was skating in the last pair, I still didn’t think the gold was mine,” Ning said afterward. “He’s been in incredible form all season. Even after crossing the finish line I still wasn’t completely sure. It was only when the result was confirmed that it started to sink in. It’s an incredible feeling.”

The 1,500m in speed skating is known as the race of kings because it sits at the perfect crossroads of the sport’s demands. The race requires the raw pace of a sprinter and the endurance of a distance specialist, ruthlessly exposing any weakness in either side.

Many of the sport’s greatest champions have won the 1,500m title, making it a proving ground where the most complete skater takes the crown. Only three of the 30 medalists in the men’s 500m from 1988 to 2022 have even skated the 1,500m.

Dutch skater Joep Wennemars, perhaps seasoned in the 1000m, set the first milestone for the 11th pair with an Olympic record time of 1:43.05, triggering a wall of noise among the orange-clad supporters.

Two runs later, while Stolz calmly completed circuits on the inside warm-up lane, Ning lowered that mark with a brilliant display of forefoot skating, posting second-best start times of 22.99 seconds and 47.86 seconds before taking control at 1,100m with a field best time of 1:13.80 and never looking back. Nuis, riding one-on-one in the same pair, was fastest after 700m, but his early aggression proved costly on the final lap.

Stolz came out in the final pair, his introduction eliciting deafening roars from a crowd primed for history. What followed was almost conservative. He finished the first round in fifth place at 300m (23.36), where he remained at 700m (48.82), never continuing the blistering pace set by Ning and Nuis. He finished in 27.60, faster than Ning, and the fastest final lap among the medalists, but it proved too little, too late.

He walked around the oval slowly with his head down after his time flashed on the screen while Ning celebrated with his coaches before taking a victory lap while wearing the Chinese flag as a cape. Wennemars finished fourth, although he briefly held the best time in Olympic history, 0.26 seconds behind the medals.

“When I saw Ning’s [time]“I thought it was very quick,” Stolz said. “I said to myself: ‘I can skate that time in Inzell, during the last World Cup.’ But here it’s a really fast time.

“I just didn’t really have the legs. The start was a little slow. I thought maybe I could get them back, but I was just starting to die.

“Ning had the race of his life. I didn’t have one of my best, but I’m still happy with the silver. I have two gold medals and I was actually very happy that Ning was able to do it. I really like Ning.”

Stolz entered the Olympics with immense expectations, already a seven-time world champion and favorite here over three individual distances. Had he completed a 500-1000-1500 hat-trick – as he has done at two of the last three world championships – he would have become the first male speed skater to win three gold medals at the Games since Norway’s Johann Olav Koss at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.

Stolz’s trajectory since Beijing 2022 has been meteoric. At 17, debuting at the Olympics, he finished 13th in the 500m and 14th in the 1000m. Four years later, he has won two gold medals and a silver with one last chance at a medal in Saturday’s mass start.

Raised in Kewaskum, Wisconsin, and developed at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee, Stolz focused on blade configuration, ice density and aerodynamic efficiency in the pursuit of what he calls “free speed.” The Milan track – a temporary Olympic venue that has already produced some of the fastest times in Olympic history – played into that mindset.

Ning’s victory on Thursday marked the seventh Olympic record of the competition after Francesca Lollobrigida in the women’s 3000m, Norwegian Sander Eitrem in the men’s 5000m, Dutch Jutta Leerdam in the women’s 1000m, Stolz in the 1000m and 500m and Dutch star Femke Kok in the women’s 500m.

“After the Beijing Winter Olympics, the level of speed skating has continued to grow,” Ning said. “I felt like there was a mountain in front of me and no matter what I did, I just couldn’t get past it.

“But I never stopped believing in myself. I kept telling myself to stay patient, to keep working, to trust that all the hard work would one day add up. Today was that day. Even now, it still seems a little unreal that I was able to do that.”