Gold things didn’t come in threes for Jordan Stolz.

In one of the biggest upsets of the 2026 Winter Olympics, the American speedskating sensation finished second Thursday in the 1,500 meters. Stolz was a 14:1 favorite, but it’s hard for the odds to account for the Olympic record time getting reset twice just minutes apart and gold medalist Ning Zhongyan of China skating the race of his life.

“I didn’t have it today,” said Stolz. “Not sure why.”

Stolz, the 21-year-old silver medalist from Wisconsin, previously won two golds in style as he set Olympic records with his times in the 500 meters and 1,000 meters. But the challenge issued Thursday by the rest of the 1,500-meter field was too steep.

“I thought he would beat Ning by .5,” Stolz’s coach, Bob Corby, wrote in a text message to The Associated Press. “I really don’t know why he didn’t perform well. It for sure wasn’t mental. … He didn’t have his best race and Ning did!”

Stolz, for his part, couldn’t quite believe it when he saw his time on a screen at the initial check point.

“The beginning part was a little bit off. … I thought I was pushing a bit harder than that,” Stolz said. “I didn’t quite feel it in the legs.”

His time, 1:42.75, was nearly a half-second quicker than the previous Olympic record, but it wasn’t good enough on this day.

“I thought that was a super fast time for him. Probably the best race of his life,” Stolz said about Ning. “And I didn’t have my best race. So it was kind of hard to compete with his. He was just really good today. … I was attacking as hard as I could. I thought it was going to be kind of close. He was just better.”

Ning, who won a bronze in the 1,000 meters, was considered a podium threat but not the main challenger to Stolz. His gold-winning 1,500-meter performance is a big improvement from seventh in the 2022 Winter Olympics and a three-place improvement over his career-best in the race at any major event, per MSN.

Joep Wennemars of the Netherlands sent the first message to Stolz in the 11th of 15 pairs of skaters by setting an Olympic record at 1:43.05. The record didn’t last long — and Wennemars didn’t even reach the podium in a statement of what the event was like.

Zhongyan raced head-to-head with two-time defending Olympic champion Kjeld Nuis in the 12th pairing to set the bar. Both Zhongyan (1:41.98) and Nuis passed Wennemars and set the bar for Stolz, who is a two-time world champion and the two-time reigning World Cup champion in the 1,500 meters.

Stolz’s proven 1,500-meter strategy is to make up ground on the final lap when others are tired. Skating last, Stolz shaved about one second off his deficit to bump Nuis to the bronze but still finished 0.77 seconds off Zghongyan’s blazing pace.