02/21/26 10:42:00
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02/21 10:40 CST Jordan Stolz is 4th in his last Olympic speedskating race.
Dutch skaters win the mass start golds
Jordan Stolz is 4th in his last Olympic speedskating race. Dutch skaters win
the mass start golds
By HOWARD FENDRICH
AP National Writer
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.
The mullet-wearing 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. He now has a total of five Olympic medals, including a gold in the
10,000 way back in 2014. Viktor Hald Thorup of Denmark got the silver Saturday.
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.
The gold in the women's mass start, the last speedskating event at these
Olympics, also went to a Dutch skater: reigning world champion Marijke
Groenewoud, who hadn't finished better than seventh in her other three races in
Milan. Ivanie Blondin of Canada was the silver medalist for the second Games in
a row, followed by Mia Manganello of the U.S. with the bronze.
Blondin helped Canada win a second consecutive team pursuit gold earlier at
these Olympics. The 36-year-old Manganello, this season's World Cup champion in
the mass start, took a victory lap with a U.S. flag after the final race of her
career.
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 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
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