21-Year-Old Speed Skater Could Win 4 Olympic Golds

A kid who learned to skate on his family's frozen pond in Wisconsin is about to attempt something only one other American has ever achieved at the Winter Olympics.

Jordan Stolz arrives at the Milano Cortina Olympics as the dominant force in speed skating, with real chances to win gold in four different events over the next 11 days. If he sweeps his three main races, he'll join Eric Heiden as the only Americans to win more than two golds in any sport at a single Winter Games.

The 21-year-old from Kewaskum started skating at age five, circling a hand-cleared oval behind his house while wearing a blue lifejacket. His mom Jane wouldn't let him skate without it until his dad drilled through the ice to prove it was several feet thick.

Everything changed when young Jordan watched the 2010 Olympics. For two weeks, the TV stayed on in a house normally built around being outdoors. He watched short-track star Apolo Anton Ohno win his final medals and saw what real speed looked like.

For the past three years, Stolz has tightened his grip on speed skating so completely that his losses now feel like statistical outliers. He's won seven world championships and enters Milan as the favorite in the 500m, 1000m, and 1500m, plus a medal contender in the mass start.

His competition begins Wednesday with the men's 1000m at 12:30pm Eastern. If he completes the 500-1000-1500 treble like he did at two of the past three world championships, only three other athletes in Winter Olympic history will have won four golds at a single Games.

Why This Inspires

Most afternoons at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee, Stolz trains in practical anonymity. A few junior skaters drift near the boards while the fastest man in the sport loops the oval, head low and shoulders still. In America, speed skating happens mostly every four years.

But in the Netherlands, where the sport sits at the center of the culture, Stolz is already a household name. Now he has the chance to become one at home too.

NBC has positioned him prominently across its Olympic coverage, including a teaser ad with actor Glen Powell that cost Stolz a precious training day to film. He admits the attention has been building for months, though he tries not to think about the pressure.

"Once you get to the line, it's the same thing you've been doing for years," Stolz said this week. "Everything around you is just noise."

Geography shaped his path as much as talent. If the Pettit Center hadn't been 40 minutes from his backyard pond, his story might have bent somewhere else entirely.

Now that frozen pond kid is 11 days away from potentially defining an entire Olympics.