Just one week before his homecoming, speedskater Jordan Stolz threw up, fell – and still took the gold in everything, and still extended another of his speedskating records.
It’s just the latest incredible chapter in this young man’s skyrocketing career.
The 20-year-old from Kewaskum raced in Calgary over the weekend in the third ISU World Cup event of the season. After starting the weekend unconventionally with the 1,500-meter race – usually World Cups start with the 1,000 or 500 sprint distances – Stolz won and set a track record in the 38-year-old building.
He did so while his head “felt like it was going to explode,” and he had to vomit between the race and the medal ceremony, according to a story shared on the ISU website.
Then when Stolz returned to the rink the next day, he fell while warming up for the 1,000-meter race.
Stolz’s legs were tired from the 1,500 middle distance race the day before, but that’s not why he fell. One of Stolz’s skate blades hit a rut and he lost his contact with the ice for the first time all season, and just the second time in more than a year and a half.
It was just an unfortunate circumstance, said his father, Dirk Stolz. After the conclusion of the B group races at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, the ice was not resurfaced for the warmups, which meant Stolz and the other 1,000-meter A group racers took the the roughed up ice. On the warmup, Stolz was running wide open coming around the turn.
“And the ice broke away. And man, did he hit the pads hard,” said Dirk Stolz. “He just crashed super hard. Ended up with a little bit of a neck strain and elbow injury but saved the blades the way he fell.”
Stolz still managed to come back and win the 1,000, as well as the 500 race after that. He times were season bests, 33.85 seconds in the 500, 1:05.09 in the 1,000 and 1:41.22 in the 1,500, and track records in the in latter two races. The Olympic Oval was built for the 1988 Olympics.
Coming back from a fall like that is just the latest example of how mentally tough Stolz is. He’s dealt with zipper malfunctions, blade issues and a locked down pandemic-era Olympics.
But it also further demonstrates his massive versatility in race distances.
By sweeping gold in the 500, 1000 and 1500, it means he’s won 19 World Cup races in a row dating to last season.
Dirk Stolz believes that Jordan’s youth experience in short track speedskating – that’s the wild racing on tighter turns – helped him avoid a more serious injury. When Jordan did short track, he practiced falls. And that helped him last weekend.
“He was going down, and then he spun in mid air as he was going down,” said Dirk Stolz. “He rotated his body so that his rear end would hit the pads first, and he kind of kept his legs up in the air so that the skates wouldn’t crash into the pads. He strained his neck, and hit the back of his head on the ice as he went down.
“When you hit a rut and you’re pushing so hard and the ice blows away on you, there’s nothing you can do. It’s not like a slip.
“But he got up right away, brushed it off; he was more worried about the blades than himself.”
Jordan Stolz’s blades are essential to his world class racing and he had already dealt with a blade snafu last season when he had to rig up his skates right before he set the world record in the 1,000.
Stolz’s coach, Bob Corby, is also a physical therapist, and he’s been treating Stolz here and there, said Dirk Stolz.
Stolz is returning home to Wisconsin to race this weekend at the next World Cup event. The ISU World Cup returns to Milwaukee for the first time in 20 years with racing Friday through Sunday at the Pettit National Ice Center.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Nickel: A week before his homecoming, speedskater Jordan Stolz falls – but still wins everything – in Calgary World Cup
Reporting by Lori Nickel, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
