Nearly an hour after leaving the crowd in awe and opponents stunned, Chinese speed skater Ning Zhongyan still couldn't take in the magnitude of his achievement — pulling off what is arguably the race of his life that many have hailed as a game changer in the sport.

By circling three laps around the oval-shaped track and crossing the finish line in 1 min and 41.98 sec on Thursday, Ning reset the 1,500m Olympic record, won his first Olympic gold medal at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, and to his biggest surprise, beat the event's favorite medal contender Jordan Stolz of the United States.

"I still can't believe I did it. That I've climbed over the mountain, which seemed insurmountable for so long," said an emotional Ning after lengthy celebrations with his coaches and teammates before taking interviews.

Stolz, the event's two-time world champion, was the mountain-like hurdle that Ning had trained and worked hard to overcome but came up short during previous competitions — until Thursday.

Racing in pair 13 alongside legendary skater Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands, Ning got off to a flying start and pushed hard with each stroke while gliding through the curves smoothly to complete the 1,500m ahead of Nuis, the event's defending champion from the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Stolz raced in the final pair but could not improve on the time, clocking 1:42.75 in silver medal position, ahead of Nuis, who took bronze with a time of 1:42.82.

"Today he had a better race. It was super good," said Stolz, who already won the 500m and 1,000m earlier at the Games, on Ning's breakthrough performance.

"Ning is a cool guy. When I saw that he won, I was happy for him. I was a little emotional. I was thinking about how he must be feeling in that moment."

Ning's 1,500m victory was the Chinese delegation's first gold medal across all ice sports in Italy and the Chinese men's speed skating program's second Olympic title of all time, after Gao Tingyu won the 500m on home ice in 2022.

Celebrating wildly with Ning on the sideline was an equally emotional Dutchman in Team China uniform — renowned speed skating coach Johan de Wit — who welcomed Ning, along with Chinese women's skater Han Mei, into his own club Team Gold three years ago, when Ning did not win any medals during the Games in Beijing.

After training systematically with De Wit at the Japan-based camp, jointly set up by the Dutch expert and Miho Takagi, a two-time Olympic champion from Japan, Ning significantly improved his consistency and stability.

De Wit, citing Ning's work ethics and talent, said he'd witnessed Ning's potential and future success when all eyes were focused on Stolz.

"By watching him skate (in previous rounds), you can feel that good performances are coming," De Wit said after the final.

"We have this trust and love for everybody on our team. That's why they want to be with our team and that's why they pushed each other to improve."

After the two bronze medals he won earlier in 1,000m competitions, a dream gold has proved Ning's effort with Team Gold, making his yearlong absence from home worthwhile.

Adding to the country's gold haul, China's decorated freestyle skiing aerials team put up another stellar show when men's skier Wang Xindi won his first Olympic gold medal at Milano-Cortina 2026 on Friday to build on his wife and teammate Xu Mengtao's women's title two days ago.

Earlier, Ning's golden dash on Thursday capped off a frenzied two-day celebration for the Chinese delegation after snowboarding sensation Su Yiming delivered the country's first gold at the Games on Wednesday by winning the men's slopestyle final at the Livigno Snow Park in northern Italy.

Shortly after Su's victory, five-time Olympian Xu Mengtao delivered China's second gold by delivering a multi-flip stunt to defend her women's freestyle skiing aerials title, becoming the world's only aerials skier to retain an Olympic gold in the discipline.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn