Jordan Stolz opens speed skating World Cup season with more wins and a new goal

American Jordan Stolz won two races in a span of less than two hours, including shattering a track record, to open the World Cup speed skating season on Friday in Nagano, Japan.

Stolz, the 20-year-old coming off a historic 2023-24 season, won the 500m and then the 1500m at the M-Wave, the 1998 Olympic arena.

In the 500m, he skated 34.43 seconds to prevail by 15 hundredths over Canadian Laurent Dubreuil. Stolz, the second-fastest 500m skater in history, was three hundredths off the track record.

Later, Stolz dominated the 1500m, clocking 1:43.65 to win by 94 hundredths over Norwegian Sander Eitrem. Stolz, the third-fastest 1500m skater in history, shattered the track record by 1.07 seconds.

The Nagano stop continues Saturday — live on Peacock — with the women’s and men’s 1000m, the women’s 3000m and the men’s 5000m. Stolz is the world record holder in the 1000m.

In March 2023, Stolz became the youngest skater to win a world title in a single distance and the first man to win three individual golds at a single world championships with his sweep of the 500m, 1000m and 1500m.

Last winter, he repeated the triple at worlds, then went on to become the youngest man to win the world allround title since fellow Wisconsinite Eric Heiden in 1978.

This winter, Stolz has new targets: World Cup season titles. Those prizes go to the skaters who accumulate the most points per distance over the six-stop World Cup series that runs to March.

Stolz has never won a World Cup season title at any distance, due in part to the fact that he has never raced every World Cup in a season. Stolz does plan to race every World Cup this season, including a home stop in Milwaukee at the end of January.

Stolz also believes he could challenge the 500m world record this season. Last season, he skated 33.69 in Calgary, which was eight hundredths off Russian Pavel Kulizhnikov’s world record from 2019.

The ovals in Salt Lake City and Calgary are the fastest in the world due to their altitude. Salt Lake City, where most world records are set, does not have a World Cup stop this winter, but Calgary does from Jan. 24-26.

In offseason and preseason training, Stolz focused more on his primary events — 500m, 1000m and 1500m, the three shortest races — than on endurance work he needed for last season’s allround worlds. He had to skate a 5000m and 10,000 at allround worlds last March, but there are no allround worlds this season.