Here’s how skaters will qualify for the U.S. Olympic speed skating team

It’s finally here: The U.S. Olympic Team Trials for long-track speed skating. The best in the country are at the Pettit National Ice Center to qualify for the Olympics next month in Milan, Italy.

Here’s how the skaters will qualify:

Kewaskum’s Jordan Stolz, 21, will qualify for the U.S. team as soon as he skates his first race, the 1,000 meters, Saturday, Jan. 3.

In fact, he prequalified – based on his World Cup performances – for all of his events: the 500, the 1,000, the 1,500 and the 16-lap Mass Start.

To secure his quota spots, he must compete in each of those races, but his finishing place will not matter, said Alysha Rummler, marketing manager for U.S. Speedskating. This is just to qualify.

Stolz is atop all of the World Cup standings from his 2025 races, finishing first in the 500, the 1,000 and the 1,500, making him the best in the world. Somewhat of a newcomer to the crazy Mass Start race, Stolz even finished No. 5 in the World Cup standings there – and was the top American.

But it will be a little different for the other skaters, Rummler said. Examples:

• Mia Manganello is prequalified in the Mass Start for the women.
• Erin Jackson is prequalified in the 500 for the women. 
• Casey Dawson is prequalified in the 10,000 based on his World Cup performance because there is no 10,000 race at Trials. 

Aside from those skaters, the rest are fighting for two available quota spots each in the men's 500, 1,000 and 1,500, and the women's 1,000 and 1,500.

There is one available quota spot for the men's 5,000 and Mass Start, and one available for the women's 500 and Mass Start.

These quotas will be filled based on results this weekend. 

There’s a caveat: There are only eight total men that can qualify and six total women, so if too many people qualify for spots, then there could be reductions and the distance-quota spots would then be filled with the top eight male and six women athletes. 

That means the official team probably won’t be determined until after all the races Jan. 5.

There are options for Team Pursuit specialists to be named – if the athletes don’t qualify for individual spots – but that is more involved of a process.

It should be a great weekend of racing. Paul Golomski, the general manager of the Pettit, is famous for making glassy, fast ice and perfect indoor racing temperatures and atmosphere, so much so that top athletes have said they really like racing in Milwaukee.

And qualifying can be very competitive. Remember 2022? Jackson had a small skip slip on her 500-meter race, and Brittany Bowe went on to win that event at 37.811 seconds. Kimi Goetz finished second at 37.859. Bowe and Goetz claimed the two spots allotted. Jackson was third place at 38.249. She was out.

It was crushing because Jackson was the No. 1 skater in the women’s 500 and had a 2021 season for the ages.

If Jackson had fallen instead of skittered, she would have been issued a re-skate. But she’s an incredible athlete, and her natural instincts seemed to take over so she held her line and didn’t fake a spill out.

Her only hope became Bowe, her longtime friend, who went on to concede her spot to Jackson in what has to be one of the best signs of sportsmanship ever seen.

Jackson went on to win the women’s 500 in the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

And Bowe herself went on to to get her first Olympic medal in three tries, the bronze, in the 1,000.

Here’s the schedule. Everything is sold out until Jan. 5. Stolz is expected to race Jan. 3-5, at least once.

• Friday, Jan. 2: women’s 3,000 meters and men’s 5,000 meters, 5:30 p.m.-7 p.m. (sold out)
• Saturday, Jan. 3: women’s/men’s 1,000 meters, 3-5 p.m. (sold out)
• Sunday, Jan. 4: women’s/men’s 500 meters No. 1, women’s/men’s 1,500 meters, 1-5 p.m. (sold out)
• Monday, Jan. 5: women’s/men’s Mass Start No. 1, 3:45 p.m., women’s/men’s 500 meters No. 2, 4:30 p.m., women’s/men’s Mass Start No. 2, 6 p.m. (less than 400 tickets remain)

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How speed skaters will qualify for U.S. Olympic team in Milwaukee