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Jordan Stolz extends historic speed skating win streak — barely

Jordan Stolz ran his speed skating World Cup win streak to 15 races in a row while fending off his closest challenge yet.

Stolz won the 500m in Calgary on Sunday in 33.85 seconds, edging emerging Dutchman Jenning de Boo by two hundredths.

It’s the closest margin of victory of Stolz’s streak. Stolz had previously won races by as little as eight hundredths.

Stolz, a 20-year-old from Wisconsin, also won the 1500m on Friday (in the fastest time ever outside of the altitude of Salt Lake City) and the 1000m on Saturday (in the third-fastest time ever anywhere, according to Evert Stenlund)

He is undefeated across the 500m, 1000m and 1500m on the World Cup for more than one year. He also won world championships in those distances the previous two seasons.

After Friday’s 1500m, he vomited before the awards ceremony, according to the International Skating Union (ISU).

“I had a very bad headache, it was throbbing,” he said, according to a press release. “It just felt like it was going to explode.”

In Saturday’s 1000m, de Boo tied Stolz’s previous track record time of 1:06.05. Stolz went two pairs later and lowered the track record by 15 hundredths to 1:05.90. Stolz owns the world record of 1:05.37.

De Boo, who turned 21 last Wednesday, broke the Dutch records in the 1000m and the 500m this weekend.

“That 1000m was incredibly good, and it really surprised me, but the 500m ... everybody said that I was going to skate a 33-second-time, but it’s not that easy, so that put quite some pressure on my shoulders,” he said, according to the ISU. “I knew Stolz’s time already, and I was really shaking at the starting line. Yet I managed to do what I had to do, and I’m very proud of that.”

Stolz spoke to de Boo after Sunday’s race, telling the Dutchman that he got pretty close.

“I was a little tired today, but I skated technically pretty well,” Stolz told Dutch broadcaster NOS.

Stolz’s last World Cup defeat came Jan. 28, 2024, in a 5000m, a distance he rarely skates. His last World Cup defeat in his three primary events — 500m, 1000m and 1500m — was Dec. 10, 2023.

Earlier this season, he won four races each at the first two World Cups in November and December.

Stolz’s 15 consecutive World Cup wins across all of his individual starts is the longest streak in years, perhaps decades. The annual World Cup circuit began in 1985.

Of the five men with the most individual victories in World Cup history, the longest win streak in individual starts was nine by Dutchman Sven Kramer and German Uwe-Jens Mey, according to Speedskatingstats.com. Kramer won 15 in a row if including team pursuits.

On the women’s side, German Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann won 23 consecutive individual World Cup starts from 1992-94, according to her Speedskatingstats.com profile.

The World Cup moves next week to Stolz’s home rink — the Pettit Center in Milwaukee — with live coverage on Peacock on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well as coverage on CNBC on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.

Jordan Stolz could go for three gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Eric Heiden is the only American to win that many at one Winter Games.