Under Olympic pressure, Shiffrin, Stolz and Malinin remind us that the scoreboard always has the final say
Olympic athletes compete not just for themselves, but for everyone near them, and also for everyone on their screens. Most of them are professionals in their sports, active but invisible in the four years between Olympics. Those Games arrive with a desperate force, as sponsors and media all seek a return on their investment. And to be sure, the athletes are complicit as well, building their brands in advance, which does not for most make the task of winning or medaling easier; it makes it harder.
But one size does not fit all. A little more than 24 hours after Malinin’s disappointment, speed skater Jordan Stolz, who arrived in Italy with similar expectations, won his second gold medal, this one under the withering pressure of the 500 meters, which takes barely half a minute and is decided by tiny margins. He defeated Dutch rival Jenning De Boo, and won by .11 seconds with a stunning close over the final 30 meters. Three days earlier Stolz had won a gold medal in the 1,000 meters, the event in which he is most dominant, also in an Olympic record, also over de Boo, who had raced out to an early lead before Stolz skated him down on the final lap.
After that race, Stolz told NBC’s Lewis Johnson, “I thought I was feeling good in the beginning, and then Jenning just came by me and I thought wow, maybe he’s good enough to win the gold and then I’ll be getting second. And then in that second-to-last turn, I was like, no, I can’t let this happen. So I threw two arms down, and I just went as hard as I possibly could, and I made it.”
After getting his second gold in the 500, Stolz described his finishing close like so: “When I came out of the exit, we were right next to each other. Even if he was a little bit ahead, I thought I would still be able to win, just because my last 100 is really good.” Simple. See the ball, hit the ball.
Stolz was asked about pressure. His response: “I definitely felt it before the 1,000. Sometimes you just have to deal with [pressure] and get it out of your mind if it’s going to affect your racing. You only have one chance to win. You have to just put it out of your mind.” (To be clear Stolz understands the power of the Olympics. During an interview last fall for a feature story, he said, “The Olympics are everything, right?”)
