Jordan Stolz calmly looks ahead to trying to win a 3rd Olympic speedskating gold

MILAN (AP) — Jordan Stolz is so preternaturally calm and apparently impervious to nerves that the two-time Olympic gold medalist's coach, Bob Corby, does occasionally wonder whether his star speedskating pupil might be a little too relaxed.

One example: Before Stolz was due to compete in the 500 meters at the Milan Cortina Games, Corby found him laying down in the athletes' lounge, not a care in the world, as race time was getting closer.

“I’m like, ‘OK, OK. Are we going to warm up? Are we going to warm up?’ Finally, I shook him,” Corby recounted Saturday following Stolz's victory in the 500 that came on top of an earlier win in the 1,000 at these Olympics. “And he goes, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Looks at his watch. ‘I still have 45 seconds until my alarm goes off.’”

A smiling Corby explained: “That's just normal behavior for him. One of the other coaches asked me one time: ‘So do things bother him?’”

Sure doesn't seem so on the ice.

As long as Stolz is healthy, the 21-year-old from Wisconsin tends to finish first, no matter the setting or circumstances. His first career Olympic golds — making him only the second man, along with Eric Heiden at Lake Placid in 1980, to complete the 500-1,000 double at one Winter Games — had been anticipated, if not downright expected, by many before competition began in Milan.

He holds the world record in the 1,000 and is unbeaten in that event this season. He won five of nine World Cup 500s this season. He is a two-time world champion in both of those events, plus the 1,500, which is coming up Thursday.

And then Stolz will race in the mass start on Feb. 21, his fourth, and last, event.

Does he ever have a case of the jitters?

“Oh, yeah. For sure,” Stolz said. “Before the 1,000, I was feeling nervous, just because it was the first one and it’s, like, the Olympics, right? And it’s super important. Even just watching (others race the 5,000 last weekend ) made me a little bit nervous, because you’ve waited four years to get here and now you only have one chance to win. And I've been winning all the 1,000s, I don’t know for how long, and I thought, ‘I really don’t want to lose this one.’"

That triumph meant the tension receded for the 500.

“I felt a lot less pressure today, just because I got the first one out of the way,” Stolz said Saturday. “And I thought this one’s, like, not worth stressing over, because it’s going to be a toss-up, either way.”

He used a good start and his usual finishing verve to get past Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands in their head-to-head heat at the sport's shortest distance. On Wednesday, in the 1,000, Stolz also shared the ice with de Boo in a heat and also came through at the end, that time after trailing with 400 meters to go.

Corby called the 500 performance the best of Stolz's career.

“I would agree with that,” Stolz said. “I didn’t feel too many difficulties in it.”

Well, then.

“He loves training. He loves racing. He does not get that anxious and nervous when he’s out there,” Heiden said. “I don’t know if he really is concerned about what everybody else is doing. He’s more concerned about: Is he going to perform up to his expectations?”

Stolz's father, Dirk, said he and Jordan spoke on the phone at about midnight on Friday night.

Listening to “the tone of his voice,” Dirk Stolz said, made him realize Jordan was not anxious. He was confident.

“You see some athletes, just mentally — they might be physically all there, but all of a sudden, the pressure comes in and it affects their performance, and I don’t see it with Jordan a whole lot. He’s pretty relaxed,” Dirk Stolz said. “At the end of the day, it’s another race at another place, really, with different scenery, right? That’s how you got to look at it.”

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Jordan Stolz of the United States, left, and Jenning De Boo of the Netherlands compete during the speed skating men's 500m at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Jordan Stolz of the U.S. concentrates prior to competing in the men's 500 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Gold medallist Jordan Stolz of the U.S. celebrates after the men's 500 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Jordan Stolz of the U.S. competes in the men's 500 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Jordan Stolz of the U.S. and coach Bob Corby talk after the men's 1,000 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Artemis II astronauts have captured our blue planet’s brilliant beauty as they zoom ever closer to the moon.

NASA released the crew’s first downlinked images Friday, 1 1/2 days into the first astronaut moonshot in more than half a century.

The first photo taken by commander Reid Wiseman shows a curved slice of Earth in one of the capsule’s windows. The second shows the entire globe with the oceans topped by swirling white tendrils of clouds. A green aurora even glows, according to NASA.

“It’s great to think that with the exception of our four friends, all of us are represented in this image," said NASA's Lakiesha Hawkins, an exploration systems leader. She added the mission was going well.

As of late Friday afternoon, Wiseman and his crew were more than 110,000 miles (180,000 kilometers) from Earth and were quickly gaining on the moon with another 150,000 miles (240,000 kilometers) to go. They should reach their destination on Monday.

The three Americans and one Canadian will swing around the moon in their Orion capsule, hang a U-turn and then head straight back home without stopping. They fired Orion's main engine Thursday night that set them on their course.

After Mission Control shifted the position of their capsule, the entire Earth complete with northern lights filled their windows.

“It was the most spectacular moment, and it paused all four of us in our tracks,” Wiseman said in a TV interview.

They're the first lunar travelers since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the Artemis II crew, from left, Canadien astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and pilot Victor Glover as they appear on a video conference from the moon's orbit Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This image provided by NASA shows a downlink image of Earth taken by NASA’s Artemis II astronaut commander Reid Wiseman inside the Orion capsule on Friday, April 3, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This image provided by NASA shows a view of Earth taken by NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman from of the Orion spacecraft's window after completing the translunar injection burn on April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)