Jake Paul cries of joy for his gilfried Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands who won after the Women's 1000m Speed Skating event, Italy. Photo / Getty Images
Jutta Leerdam, the Dutch speed skater and fiancee of American YouTube star Jake Paul, was reduced to tears as she claimed Winter Olympics gold by leading home a Netherlands one-two.
Leerdam was last on the ice in the women’s 1000m speed-skating final alongside Japan’s Miho Takagi, and the 27-year-old Dutchwoman stormed to victory by setting a new Olympic record, just moments after her compatriot Femke Kok had done exactly the same.
Leerdam was in tears at the finish, causing her makeup to run down her cheeks as she celebrated. She looked up to an equally tearful Paul in the stands in Milan, with the pair then reciprocating love-heart signs as he sat among the army of orange-clad Dutch supporters.
It’s fair to say that the significant others of big media personalities are often overshadowed by their partners in the limelight. But in the Netherlands at least, YouTuber-turned-boxer Paul is known as “Jutta Leerdam’s boyfriend”.
For many spectators though, especially those outside the Winter Olympics community, many people will only have known Leerdam from the first time she appeared on Paul’s Instagram page.
It’s understandable, given that when you search for her name online even during the Winter Olympics, the suggested top stories are all about her figure in a bikini photo or the presence of her famous fiance.
Jake Paul was left in tears of happiness after watching his fiancée, Jutta Leerdam, break an Olympic record 🥺 pic.twitter.com/CmjTvpprlT
— TNT Sports (@tntsports) February 9, 2026
But the Dutchwoman is a seven-time speed skating world champion, who took home a silver medal from Beijing 2022 and can now call herself an Olympic champion.
A former field hockey player, she turned to skating aged 11, having grown up doing so around her home town of ‘s-Gravenzande.
She claimed five medals between 2017 and 2018 at the World Junior Speed Skating Championships across 500m, 1500m, 3000m and allround events. She followed that up in 2020, despite the disrupted calendar during the Covid-19 pandemic, with her first European Championship title and two gold medals in Salt Lake City, Utah at the World Singles Distance Championships just a month later.
She posted a time of 1m 13.19s in the 1000m at Beijing 2022, which earned her the silver medal, but her qualification for Milan-Cortina had at one stage looked unlikely after a fall at the Olympic trials in Heerenveen, Netherlands in December last year. Although she did not finish the race, she was still chosen by the Dutch National Olympics Committee to represent her country in Italy.
“I’ve already achieved so many things. Dutch titles make me incredibly happy, but there’s one thing I still need: Olympic gold,” Leerdam said in a recent interview. “I’m so hyper-focused on one competition.”
Four years on, Leerdam went significantly quicker than that effort, posting a time of 1m 12.31s to snatch gold away from her compatriot, Kok, by just 0.28s with Takagi taking the bronze.
She did not meet Paul until 2023, by which point she already had 10 senior medals under her belt across a number of distances. The couple announced their relationship on social media in April 2023 and revealed that they had met after Paul messaged her and invited her on to his podcast. Less than two years later, they announced their engagement.
They make regular appearances at each other’s events, with Paul supporting Leerdam most recently at the 2025 World Single Distances Championships, where she took silver in the 500m.
Leerdam has attended a number of Paul’s boxing matches, and while she missed his latest bout in Miami as it clashed with her Olympic qualification, she posted a message of support to her five million fans on Instagram after former British world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua knocked out the American in the sixth round.
But she has faced criticism since arriving at Milan-Cortina by private jet, with her decision to skip the opening ceremony and watch from the comfort of her hotel room attracting criticism of her apparent “diva” lifestyle. “Netherlands is starting to get a bit fed up,” Dutch pundit Johan Derksen remarked. “Her behaviour is that of a diva.”
While things took a bit of a dip competitively for both Leerdam and Paul at the end of 2025, the Dutchwoman can now add “Olympic champion” to her pantheon of accolades.
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.