Jordan Stolz, 21, Sets Olympic Record in Speed Skating Gold

The same 5-year-old boy who begged his dad to clear ice on their Wisconsin lake so he could practice speedskating is now an Olympic champion with a record to prove it.

Jordan Stolz, 21, won gold in the men's 1000-meter speedskating race on Wednesday in Milan, clocking an Olympic record time of 1:06.28. His mother filmed him as a kid slipping around their frozen backyard in a lifejacket, joking she'd save it for when he won at the Olympics someday.

That day arrived with one of the most thrilling finishes in speedskating history. Stolz found himself behind Netherlands' Jenning de Boo at the 600-meter mark, exactly where he didn't want to be.

Then he did what makes him special. His final 400-meter lap clocked in at 25.66 seconds, the fastest closing lap in the entire world-class field. No other skater even broke 26 seconds on that final stretch.

"I thought I just have to try harder," Stolz said of those final moments when his arm pumped hard and his blades scraped across the ice, closing the gap with every stroke.

Why This Inspires

Stolz's journey from backyard ice to Olympic gold shows what happens when childhood dreams meet obsessive dedication. He studied videos of world record holders when he was just 12, practiced crossovers late into the night on that little Wisconsin lake, and saved his record-breaking blades for a year and a half waiting for this moment.

His coach Bob Corby calls it Stolz's superpower: the ability to perform at an incredibly high level even when exhausted. Speedskating demands constant mental focus, equal parts strength and technique, and what Stolz describes as being "obsessed with weird things."

Like talking to arena workers about ice conditions hours before his race. Like eating plain rice as his prerace meal and biking in silence to stay in tune with his thoughts.

Stolz became the first American man to win this event since Shani Davis did it in 2010, the very race that inspired 5-year-old Jordan to beg his parents for skating lessons. Davis later became his mentor, close friend, and even coached him.

Now Stolz is the one future generations will study and try to emulate, the quiet superstar who can't walk down the street in the Netherlands but has been largely unknown in America until now.