The Netherlands’ Jutta Leerdam blasted her way through the women’s 1000m at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, lowering the Olympic record en route to gold. Her final mark of 1 minute, 12.31 seconds was the fourth Olympic record set in three races so far in Milan.

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A two-time world champion and three-time European champion in the distance, Leerdam skated to silver at the 2022 Beijing Games. 

“I couldn’t believe it, but I was also so tired. It was hard to feel something,” Leerdam said of her reaction after the race. “I couldn’t really stand, I couldn’t really see, I couldn’t do anything.” 

In the pair before her, teammate Femke Kok punched the clock at 1:12.59, also breaking the mark set by Japan’s Miho Takagi in 2022 (1:13.19). 

“I gave it my all. It’s a little bummer that it wasn’t quite enough for gold but Jutta was amazing,” Kok said. “Racing here felt so good, the crowd was amazing. They were cheering so loud and that gave me a lot of energy throughout the race.”

Kok made the podium in all five 1000m races on the World Cup this season, winning one and finishing the 2025-26 campaign with the World Cup title in the distance. Her specialty, however, is the 500m, where she owns the world record and a two-year-long unbeaten streak.

The 25-year-old rocketed off the start line in Monday’s race, skating the opening 200 meters in a staggering, field-leading 17.4 seconds. Leerdam’s opening split was slower at 17.6 — a margin nearly imperceptible to anyone without a stop watch — but made up the difference in her second (26.5) and third (28.6) laps, posting the fastest times of any skater in each. 

“I knew that if during the race I would feel tired, I wasn’t allowed to feel tired,” Leerdam said. “I told myself, ‘You have 80 years to recover from this, you can feel tired after. You don’t want to live with that regret. You fought so hard for this.'”

The Netherlands, which has long dominated speed skating on the international level, has made the podium in six of the last seven Olympic 1000m competitions. Prior to the podium finishes from Leerdam and Kok, the Dutch had not earned a medal in any sport at the 2026 Games.