Two days ago, one of the most surprising results of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games went down, as in the Men’s 1500m race, Ning Zhongyan had the race of his life, finishing in an Olympic Record of 1:41.98 and holding off a late charge from American speed-skating legend Jordan Stolz, who had been a heavy favorite entering the competition.
Stolz will have a chance to add a fourth medal to his tally on Saturday afternoon in the mass start event, which begins with semifinals at 9 a.m. ET (3 p.m. local) and continues with a final sprint at 10:40 a.m. ET (4:40 p.m. local). In the event, between 14 and 16 athletes compete on the track at the same time, racing for 16 laps before sprinting to the finish.
Stolz is a +110 favorite to bring home gold at DraftKings Sportsbook. Italy’s Andrea Giovannini (+500) and Belgium’s Bart Swings (+600) are also among the event’s front-runners.
Men’s Speed Skating Mass Start prediction, pick
Stolz will surely be happy to stand at the start line and not see Ning, who isn’t competing in the event. Kjeld Nuis and Joep Wennemars, who finished in the bronze medal and fourth-place positions, aren’t competing either, and neither are any of the skaters who finished between second and fifth in the 500 or 1000-meter competitions. By raw production these games, then, Stolz is on a tier of his own.
But at 6,400 meters, this isn’t necessary Stolz’s strongest distance. Instead, it’s mostly the distance skaters who succeed in the mass start events, and Stolz is more of a sprinter. Still, while it’s his least comfortable discipline, it doesn’t mean he can’t win; he is the reigning USA Champion in the discipline, having claimed it in the 2026 Salt Lake City competition. He also ranks a solid 10th in the World Cup standings in the distance, winning in one of his two starts and claiming third in the other. His victory in Hamar was pretty dominant, as he finished nearly a second ahead of Swings, while he finished just 0.32 seconds behind Giovannini in the event he didn’t win.
At +110, Stolz isn’t worth betting on. He could still win, of course, but Giovannini, who helped power Italy to a win in the 5000-meter team pursuit, is the reigning world champion in the discipline and is clearly in hot form, having finished in the top five in each of the races that he has entered this season. Swings, too, has four top-four finishes this season, and he won the mass start event at the 2022 Beijing Olympics (in which Stolz, who was then just 17 years old, did not compete).
I’m going to go for a long-shot here, though, and back Chung Jae-Won (+1000). The South Korean got off to a poor start with just an 11th-placed finish in Salt Lake City, but he bounced back with a pair of runner-ups in his other two races. He also finished second in the mass start event during the 2022 Olympics. Though he finished just 14th during the 1500m, that’s not his primary event; he hadn’t raced in it for more than a year and only competed because a spot opened up at the last minute.
