November 15, 2025 – Salt Lake City, UT – It’s a dicey topic between coach and athlete but Speedskater Jordan Stolz has announced he will be competing in four events at the 2026 Winter Olympics including the mass start.
Stolz is preparing to compete in the 500m, 1000m, and 1500m. He’s also added the mass start to his schedule. “It’s the last event of the games,” said coach Bob Corby.
Questioned whether he’s in favor of it, Corby didn’t beat around the bush. “Well no,” he said, not in a stern tone… but with the realization he had little say in the matter.
The Dutch media are having a field day with the opposing view. “They’re like, oh my God, you don’t want him to do it? I’m like, well no, he’s gonna do it. It’s just really scary, because the main thing is performing well in his three favorite distances,” Corby said.
A former speed skater, Corby grew up on pack-style racing. “But I love metric racing, because the best person always wins,” he said. “There’s no aerodynamics, there’s no drafting, you skate in opposite lanes. There’s a reason that we skate in lanes on these races; the mass start isn’t like that.”
- Everyone starts at once: Instead of two skaters racing against the clock in separate lanes, up to 24 skaters start together in a big group. It can get a little crowded, just like the beginning of your running race.
- Racing together: All the skaters stay on the same part of the ice (they don’t change lanes like in other speed skating events) and try to find the best spot in the group.
- Lots of laps: They race for 16 laps around a big oval track.
- Points, not just speed: The first person to cross the finish line at the very end wins the race. But, there are also “mini-races” (called sprint laps) during the big race, on laps 4, 8, and 12. The first three skaters to finish those specific laps get extra points.
- Winning the prize: The points help decide who gets the medals. The skaters who cross the final finish line first, second, and third automatically get the top medals. The points from the mini-races help figure out the ranking for all the other skaters.
- Fair play: The main rule skaters can’t push others or cause a dangerous situation.
Heiden, who famously won all five individual events at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, said Stolz’s range and power give him a rare versatility.
“I’d like to see what he could do if he really invested some time into those long distances,” Heiden said, discussing the 5000m and 10,000m races. “Maybe not a lot, but if he did, he’d be pretty darn competitive. Maybe not a winner, but he’d be on the podium every once in a while.”
Click HERE to read the entire interview with Eric Heiden
“I feel that Jordan has all the talent in the world. He’s worked extremely hard. I don’t think there’s anything he can’t do if he puts his mind to it,” said Davis.
As far as adding another race to his plate at the Olympics, Davis said there will be other things going on that will need Stolz to focus.
“It’s hard because it’s a once-every-four-year event that Americans really dial in and pay attention to and that’s where all the sponsorship comes from, once every four years.”
“Now they go hard the whole time,” said Corby.
“I told Jordan don’t even think about doing it unless you are prepared to go out there and hammer for 15 laps with no break, because that’s what’s going to happen, especially with you in there. All those distance skaters are going to look and go, oh, if we take it slow, he’s going to kill us at the end.
“So that’s what the race is going to be, is hard, harder, harder, harder the whole time. So it is not going to be an easy race.”
Stolz is going to test his mass start abilities on Sunday in Salt Lake City. He has to, said Corby, because he needs to earn a spot.
“He told me last year, well, I’m going to do the mass start. And I’m like, you can’t go to the Olympics and go, excuse me, I’m Jordan Stoltz. I need to race the mass start. You have to qualify, get on the US team, and then you have to skate a bunch of mass starts to get your point totals up so that you’re in the top 24 of mass start. Because that’s the only people that get skated in the Olympics, 24 guys. So they’re not going to let you in just because you’re Jordan Stoltz.”
The mass start is slated for Sunday, at 3:38 p.m.
