Nickel: Kewaskum's Jordan Stolz sets track record at Pettit National Ice Center, continues to prove he belongs among world’s best speedskaters

What a year 2022 was for Jordan Stolz.

The fact that he set a new track record to kick off 2023 at home was just fitting. The fact that he's a blur to catch up with - literally, figuratively - is on brand. He kind of really seems to prefer to skate fast and keep to himself. But he really is a special phenom. And this has been an incredible year.

The 18-year-old speedskater from Kewaskum has just gotten faster and faster since he made his debut Olympics at the Beijing Winter Games in February 2022 as the third-youngest speedskater in U.S. history.

Since then, he’s proven he belongs among the world’s best skaters, only just recently becoming the youngest man to win a speedskating World Cup Circuit this season, all while lowering his personal bests in every distance he’s tried, including the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 meters in the last three months.

“The most amazing thing about him? I have not seen a limit yet,” said Stolz’s Milwaukee-area coach, Bob Corby. “I haven’t seen a limit in summer training. I haven’t seen a limit on. The ice.”

The best part of all of this – for us – is that Jordan’s family, friends and fans can watch Stolz skate in person, as he is back at his home track at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee for the long track speedskating U.S. Championships, which began Thursday and conclude Sunday.

On Thursday morning, Stolz continued his scorching pace on the ice, setting a Pettit track record by skating the 500 meters in 34.42 seconds.

This is a big deal, since Stolz has been racing all over the world, and, when he qualified for the Olympic team at the Trials one year ago right here, the event had to be closed off to fans due to the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even when he was in China, Stolz had to race without his parents in attendance, or his coach, because China was locked down.

So for Stolz, being home right now this is more fun than stress, as his focus is on the Worlds.

“I didn’t really have any goals for this one,” said Stolz on Thursday morning after the 500. “I just wanted to keep staying in shape, which is the World Championships. So, if I would have rested for this one, and tried to break more records, I think it would have interfered with the rest of the season. I still have to train.”

And yet, he set a record anyway.

“I definitely feel a lot less pressure,” said Stolz. “I can just get out of bed and come here. It’s just like another home race.”

But really, we should not be surprised. Just consider the following three examples of Stolz’s growth as a skater:

After crushing the U.S. Trials a year ago, setting two track records at the Pettit then, Stolz performed well by almost anyone’s standards in China, finishing in the middle of the pack – and the top American - in the 500 and 1,000 at The Ice Ribbon in Beijing.

Less than a month later, Stolz raced in Norway in March where he took fourth place overall after racing against some of the best in the world. What’s crazy is Stolz had to futz with his skate suit zipper while racing – again, this is an old issue – and that surely slowed him down.

“Getting fourth in that right after the Olympics, that was pretty good,” said Corby. “That was really good, because his Olympic races were a little disappointing. It was phenomenal for a 17-year-old, but when he went the goal was to get in the Top 6.”

And what we have been seeing ever since then is a skater in Stolz who almost looks fueled by what he considered a somewhat underwhelming performance in Beijing.

“The Olympics were good but they weren’t anything crazy good,” said Stolz. “I mean the point is, I was happy I was able to go there, but the races didn’t make me anything super excited about it. I was just happy to make the Olympics and hope for a good race and that didn’t happen.”

After training at home in the summer with Corby, getting stronger and faster, doing the long bike rides, lifting heavy weights and running up Sunburst Ski hill, Stolz was ready for the cup circuit.

"When the ice does crumble or it does fall, it doesn't phase him," said Stolz's mom, Jane. "He just gets right back up and goes.

In November, in Stavanger, Norway, Stolz won the 1,500m in 1 minute, 44.891 seconds, setting the track record there and beating the second-place skater by 1.76 seconds. Stolz became the youngest man to win an individual World Cup race. That record had been in place since 1986.

“I was feeling really good on that ice there,” said Stolz.

In December, Stolz medaled three times continuing on in the third event of the International Skating Union’s World Cup circuit, in Calgary, Alberta.

His blinding 500 time of 34.08 is a junior world record and a national record. It earned him a silver medal, behind only Korea’s Jun-Ho Kim at 34.07.

These are incredible strides when Stolz and his coach saw his potential from the 34.99 he raced at the U.S. Championships in Salt Lake in 2021.

“The thing that’s he’s doing in between these phenomenal performances is continuing to train,” said Corby. “We’re not just sitting around. He had really, really hard training in the last three weeks, and really didn’t even rest that much for Milwaukee).

“Last week he trained rally hard for four days and still skated a junior national record in 3,000 metera after four extremely hard days of training.”

Oh, by the way, the 3,000 meters is a completely different race than the sprints.

“He might be able to do all of the distances,” said Corby. “We haven’t tested the waters in 10,000 meters yet. He skated an extremely good 5,000 meters in Calgary already in addition to racing all the sprinters and doing really well.”

Stolz also took a gold medal in the 1,000 and silver medal in the 1,500 in Calgary.

It’s possible, with the pace Stolz is on, to keep racing fast at the Pettit even though its not his entire focus.

“I mean, the ice makers were high-fiving on the back stretch,” said Corby. “’We did our job.’”

It’s Stolz’s favorite ice – he really appreciates how it is treated here, so much so that the ice engineers high fived each other after the 500 Thursday.

“The ice is pretty much perfect,” said Stolz. “It’s pretty smooth. They have the temperature perfect. They have their own additives in to the water, this is my favorite ice, just because the ice makers make it so well.”

The U.S. Championships is open and free to the public. The results from each day will be posted on www.speedskatingresults.com

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kewaskum's Jordan Stolz sets track record Pettit National Ice Center