Czech speedskater Metodej Jilek spoke with a straight face and not a hint of irony as he explained how he managed to win an Olympic gold medal in the men’s 10,000 meters at age 19 on Friday, adding to his silver in the 5,000 earlier at the Milan Cortina Games.

Jílek followed up on the silver medal he claimed in his debut appearance in the 5,000 metres earlier in the Games, completing a standout Olympic campaign with a gold medal performance in the longer distance.

When he won the silver medal the 19-year-old made no secret he was aiming higher, saying he had come to Milan for a gold medal.

This season, he became the youngest-ever overall World Cup winner in long-distance events, triumphed in the 10,000 metres at the December World Cup stop in Heerenveen, and posted the second-fastest time of the season.

“I feel incredible,” Jilek said. “This gold medal represents all the training I’ve been doing for years – everything I’ve been working towards. It’s amazing.

“I knew even before I came to the Olympics that I could do really well in the 10,000m, that I could win it. It was just a matter of doing the lap times.

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The 19-year-old quickly matched the pace of Poland’s Semirunniy and then moved clear, firing off multiple sub-30-second laps as a packed house roared him on. For a moment it looked as though he might threaten the Olympic record of 12:30.74, set by Nils van der Poel at Beijing 2022, but he crossed the line just outside it in 12:33.43 — a time that would stand as the winner.

His victory made him the Czech Republic’s second Olympic champion of these Games, following Zuzana Maderova’s triumph in the women’s parallel giant slalom on Sunday.

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