Macalester’s athletic ambitions often center on making conference championships. Rarely do they enter the national, much less international, spotlight. But on Feb. 11, at 11:30 a.m. CST, Macalester alum and speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy ’24 will be going for gold at Milan-Cortina 2026.

This January, McDermott-Mostowy helped break the men’s relay record on the way to a gold medal at the Speedskating World Championships in Germany. The World Championships are an annual event, and while they are as competitive as the Olympics, McDermott-Mostowy explained, they do not hold the same prestige.

McDermott-Mostowy has competed in the World Championships four times: 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025. That missing year was his previous opportunity to qualify for the Olympics, but norovirus derailed what would have been his chance.

“It was quite a blow,” he said, “to have made the World Champs teams, and then not make the Olympic team, and then make the World Champs teams again every year after that.”

Olympic speedskating is divided into long track and short track. McDermott-Mostowy will be competing in the 1,000 meter individual long track event, after finishing fourth in the most recent U.S. Championships.

McDermott-Mostowy was a neuroscience major at Macalester, and he sees medical school in his future when he retires from skating. But he has ambitions for the sport before he sets his sights back on the classroom. As an athlete representative on the Board of U.S. Speedskating, he wants to grow the sport and expand access for athletes to enter the sport, and older skaters to stick with it. As with many winter sports, gear and ice time can be a significant barrier to entry for many young athletes.

Furthermore, high school skaters often drop the sport in college.

“There are choke points throughout a skater’s potential career that are really easy off ramps,” McDermott-Mostowy said. “And so something else that [the speedskating board has] been working on is increasing educational opportunities for athletes, because we lose a ton of people when they go to college. They skate through high school, and then they graduate high school and are like, ‘I’m going to go to college.’ … I understand that if you’re going to skate, you’re not going to have a normal college experience.”

His last Olympic trials came during his time at Macalester, a college he chose in part because of its proximity to the John Rose Oval, the largest artificial skating rink in North America. Macalester doesn’t offer speedskating as a varsity or club sport. Although there are programs through various Utah colleges that work with skaters (Salt Lake City is the heart of U.S. speedskating), the sport is rare on college campuses given the intensity of the training required and scarce rink access for long-track events.

McDermott-Mostowy’s training schedule was intense, often causing him to miss classes to travel and compete, but he found the administration and individual professors to be wholeheartedly supportive.

“My last semester at Mac, I was leaving every single weekend for the first month of the semester, so I missed every single Friday,” he explained. “I would schedule my classes so that I wouldn’t have classes on Thursday, and then I could leave on Thursday, compete at World Cups Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then fly back Sunday night.”

One of his favorite Macalester professors, Mary Montgomery of the biology department, described his dedication in an email to The Mac Weekly.

“He introduced himself early on and explained that he might need to miss some classes because he would be traveling out of town to compete internationally,” Montgomery wrote. “He would arrange to take an exam early before leaving for a competition rather than asking to take it later. Competing at that level and taking courses requires a tremendous amount of discipline.”

Montgomery is spending part of her sabbatical this spring in Italy, which means she will be able to attend McDermott-Mostowy’s event in person.

“When Conor made the team, it clicked,” she explained. “I found out I could take a train from Florence to Milan that takes less than two hours and I was able to buy a ticket to the event. … It’s been his dream for a very long time and I will be so happy to be there cheering him on.”

McDermott-Mostowy’s leadership in the sport extends beyond access. As a gay male athlete, being out is important to him.

“I look at it almost as an obligation, especially right now, to be out,” he explained. “And I think that it’s important [for younger athletes] to know that queer people are in sports, and also that you can be in sports if you are a queer person.”

America is in, as McDermott-Mostowy described, an “interesting moment for men’s sports and queer acceptance.” The country faces a nationwide backsliding of support for LGBTQ rights, but is also seeing a newly accepting media environment, with shows like “Heated Rivalry” gaining popularity. McDermott-Mostowy has noticed the impact anti-DEI sentiments have had on corporate support for queer athletes.

Historically, the number of openly queer athletes competing in the Olympics has gone up every year. McDermott-Mostowy isn’t sure if the trend will continue. So far, only six athletes on Team USA for the 2026 Olympics are openly LGBTQ, and of that cohort, he’s the only man.

Macalester’s accepting environment was part of why he chose the school. But its internationalist values go well with being an international athlete.

“Being a global citizen is pretty applicable when you are an international athlete,” he said. “You want to be a great ambassador for your country. There’s the competition aspect of it, but [the Olympics are] really an amazing microcosm of globalism.”

Despite the scale of the Olympics, McDermott-Mostowy plans to approach the competition with the same mindset he always brings.

“My approach is: just treat it as another race,” he said. “I’ve done this 1,000 times, I know what I’m doing.”

• aarmentr@macalester.edu