MILAN (AP) — Jordan Stolz missed out on his chance to become the first man since 1994 to collect three gold medals in long track speedskating at one Olympics, finishing fourth in the mass start on Saturday behind 40-year-old champion Jorrit Bergsma of the Netherlands.
Bergsma is the oldest man to win a speedskating gold, and he adds that to his bronze in the 10,000 meters earlier at the Milan Cortina Games. Viktor Hald Thorup of Denmark got the silver.
Andrea Giovannini, who mimicked Steph Curry’s “Night night” gesture when he helped Italy beat the favored U.S. in the men’s team pursuit, was the bronze medalist.
Stolz won his first two events in Milan, the 500 meters and 1,000 meters. The 21-year-old from Wisconsin also leaves Italy with the silver in the 1,500. After that result on Thursday, Stolz said: “I didn’t have it today. Not sure why.”
He didn't have enough in the mass start, either.
There had been a lot of talk about whether Stolz might end up with a quartet of golds: He was asked questions about that at the outset of the news conferences immediately following his two wins. The last male speedskater to get three golds in long track at a single Winter Games was Johann Olav Koss at the Lillehammer Olympics 32 years ago. The Norwegian won the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000.
The only two long track athletes with more are Eric Heiden, who went 5-for-5 for the United States at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, and Lidiya Skoblikova, who claimed four titles in women’s speedskating while representing the Soviet Union in 1964.
Bergsma and Thorup broke away from the pack midway through the 16-lap mass start. And then Bergsma went out in front alone, with enough of a lead that he could coast home during the final backstretch, pausing to spread his arms wide, pump his fists overhead and blow kisses to the sizable group of Dutch spectators at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium.
The women's mass start final was later Saturday.
The mass start, added to the Olympics in 2018, is unlike any other individual event in long track.
Instead of essentially racing against the clock during two-person heats, all of the entrants line up together and do 16 laps — a total of 6,400 meters — simultaneously. That can lead to jostling and create what some skaters call random outcomes.
“The mass start is just kind of a tossup,” Stolz said before the race. “It’s more like a bonus. It’s so hard to say what’s going to happen in that.”
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
