Joey Mantia competes at the ISU World Cup on Dec. 15, 2019 in Nagano, Japan.
Joey Mantia’s strongest event has always been the mass start, having won two consecutive world titles, and he finished out the season with another medal in the world cup final in Heerenveen, Netherlands on Sunday.
Unfortunately, he fell just shy of claiming the overall world cup title in his signature event. The two-time Olympian went into the weekend in the lead after winning a gold and silver medal earlier in the season, and finished in third place on Sunday with a time of 7:47.190 to earn 144 points.
Belgium’s Bart Swings, however, came in second with a time of 7:47.120 and earned 162 points. That was enough to put him in the overall world cup lead by just one point with 570 to Mantia’s 569.
Nonetheless, second overall isn’t shabby and marks the end of a season in which the 34-year-old missed out on winning an unprecedented third gold medal in mass start, but did win his first medal in the 1,500-meter at the 2020 ISU World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships. It ended up being the only medal the U.S. won at that event. He also won a world cup bronze in the 1,500-meter in Calgary.
Prior to making the switch to ice, Mantia won 28 world titles in inline skating.
Korea’s Jaewon Chung won Sunday’s race for his first individual world cup gold with a time of 7:47.060.
Ian Quinn also raced in the mass start for the men and finished 12th.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
