Feb 18, 2026
3 min read
Bob Corby helped turn him from a talented but undersized kid into a powerhouse that already won two gold medals.
2026 Winter Olympics: Meet the grey-haired grandfather behind Jordan Stolz's golden career
MILAN - Last Wednesday night, shortly after 1 o'clock, coach Jordan Stolz spoke to the speed superstar.
Bob Corby caught up with Stolz in the Olympic Village, still reeling from the gold medal he had won earlier that evening when he won his first of four races on the sport's biggest stage.
"Oh, do you have a trophy there?"It armed Corbyn, 75."What did you do? Did you win a little tea ball tournament?"
"I've been thinking about this for a long time," Stoltz said with a smile before gesturing to his medal.
At first glance, Stoltz and Kobe seem like the most mismatched pair of these Olympics — the undisputed 21-year-old speed skating phenom and the funky white-haired grandfather who coaxed him out of retirement.But the speed skating oddball pair have brought out the best in each other during their seven-year career.
Stolls thrived under Corby's old-school training methods, establishing himself as the most dominant speed skater on the planet with a real chance to add two more Olympic gold medals to the two he already won in Milan.Corby was happy to help a star student get her moment in the spotlight more than four decades after an Olympic training fiasco that still haunts her today.
The only speed skater to win five gold medals in the same Olympics endorses Corby as the ideal coach to help Stolz pursue greatness.Eric Heiden used to train with Corby and to this day refers to him as "The Whisperer of skateboarding".
"He doesn't let his ego get in the way of Jordan doing his thing," Hayden said."He knows when to mentor and coach, and then when to let Jordan's natural talent take over."
We leave Sarajevo empty handed
Decades ago, Corby himself once wanted to compete in the Olympics in speed skating.He trained relentlessly for the 1972 and 1976 Winter Games, experimenting with yoga, diet and various exercises and drills to shave just a tenth of a second off his best time.
It would not have been enough.There have always been world-class American skaters faster than Corby at every distance.But those experiences helped Corby as a coach when he began working for the Madison Speedskating Club and the US Speedskating Club.The International Speedskating Association while studying physical therapy at the University of Wisconsin.
A year after Heiden swept all five-man races at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, USISA tasked Corby with helping prepare American runners for the 1984 championships in Sarajevo.He inherited a young, inexperienced team since Heiden and many other Americans had chosen to keep their skates.
The construction of the Sarajevo Games was hampered by infighting over personnel shortages, failure to raise funds, training locations and coaching methods.Reports from the period describe a split between speed skaters who supported Corby and those who supported other USISA coaches.
The results after those Olympics began were poor.The Soviets and East Germans dominated.Americans came home empty-handed.At age 18, Dan Jensen finished fourth in the men's 500. Twenty-year-old Nick Thometz finished one spot behind Jensen in the 500 and a hard-luck fourth in the 1,000.Bonnie Blair, then 19, finished in the top 10 in the women's 500. But there was no American medal winner, not even a bronze medal.
"It was very frustrating," Coby said."They know they're juniors skating with 25- and 26-year-olds, but it's still disappointing to do everything with them and not get a medal somewhere. After that I tried for a long time to analyze if there was anything I could do to change things and be a little bit better."
Corby left the national team after 1984 but continued to coach speedsters in the late 1980s.He then gradually disappeared from sports altogether as his medical training became more extensive and his children showed a preference for soccer and skating instead of speed skating.
The first time Corby met Stolz, he had no intention of coaching him.Speed skating coach Bobby Fein, a longtime close friend of Corby's, invited him to watch a short track competition in Madison nearly a decade ago.When they arrived, Fenn pointed to the 12-year-old rail pup he was coaching and told Corby, "Look at that kid, he's great."
Corby, too, saw Stolz's potential after watching him skate.He met Stolz and his parents that day at Fenn.He kept in touch, and even provided physical therapy for an athlete after he was injured.
By then, Stolz's skating ambitions had turned to a backyard pond where he and his older sister, Hanna, learned to skate.Stolz's parents brought him and Hanna to Milwaukee several times a week to work with Fenn, the world-class coach best known for developing Olympic and world champion Shani Davis.
Then on October 8, 2017, Fehn did not show up at the rink for a preparation session. Later that day, Stolz's family learned that the 73-year-old had died suddenly, of a heart attack.
Fenn's death was very difficult for both children, Jane Stolz said.Hannah gradually retired from speed skating, preferring to focus on her passion for raising exotic birds and taxidermy.Jordan also broke away.Davis replaced Fenn for a time, but when she accepted the opportunity to coach junior skaters in China, Jordan was again left without a coach.
While Corby offered occasional guidance and assistance during this time, Jordan needed much more than that.He asked Corby if he would be willing to return to the world of speed skating to coach him full-time for the first time in more than two decades.
The timing, Corby says, was "awkward" because he was about to retire from his physical therapy practice.Also, Corby says, "How can you say no to a 14-year-old who calls you and asks for help?"
Turning a skinny child into a powerhouse
With pages and pages of handwritten notes on training techniques that he kept and discarded from the beginning to the 1984 Olympics, Corby designed a special program for Stolz.Stolz spent most of the summer cycling, building leg strength and aerobic capacity.He builds strength by doing a series of heavy squats, explosive jumps and single-leg exercises.He also takes his technique off the ice and imitates your steps on a skateboard or uses cables as a resistance device to simulate twisting movements on the ice.
The emphasis on weight training helped Stoltz develop from a talented but healthy kid into a powerhouse.When speed skating was hit by the COVID pandemic, Jordan could no longer stand out among the skaters of his age.The 16-year-old went up against the fastest men in America and beat them, setting a youth record of 34.99 seconds in the men's 500 at the 2021 USA Speed Skating Championships.
"I remember thinking, 'Holy Cow,'" Corby said."This boy really has talent."
The sacred moments together do not end there.
At age 17, Stolz won the men's 500 and 1000 at the U.S. Olympic Trials, qualifying him for the Winter Games in both events.
At the age of 18, she won the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 gold medals at the World Championships.
At 19, he did it again.
Now Stolz is trying to surpass all those achievements at this Winter Games.He is halfway to four gold medals, having already set two Olympic records, Dutch sprinter Jennings de Boo won the 1,000 and 500.Then there's the race that Stolz proudly calls "Bonus," the chaotic, unpredictable mass start.
When asked why the partnership between Corby and Stolz has worked so well, Corby said that Stolz responds well to rejection, especially when the results show that the training program is working.
“He can handle a lot of work,” Corby said.
Spend even a few minutes at the speed skating rink in Milan on one of Stolz's race days, and the bond between him and Corby is obvious.Corby is the last person Stolz talks to before the race and is the first person to score high points after crossing the line.
"It's been a good experience," Corby said with a smile, "He doesn't seem to mind a white man hanging around."
