Casey Dawson, Emery Lehman and Ethan Cepuran by 4 1/2 seconds.uoyed by raucous cheering from the home crowd at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium, the Italian men finished in 3 minutes, 39.20 seconds to give their country its first Olympic title in this event since the 2006 Turin Games.oknees.
Canada collected its second consecutive Winter Games title in women’s team pursuit when Ivanie Blondin, Valerie Maltais and Isabelle Weidemann — the same athletes who won gold four years ago in Beijing — finished in 2:55.81, nearly a full second ahead of runner-up Netherlands.The Americans were an inspiration for us, because these last two years, they almost always won. … We knew we had worked a lot for this race, but the favorites were the Americans,” Giovannini said. “They made us raise our level.”
Buoyed by raucous cheering from the home crowd at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium, the Italian men clocked 3:39.20. The United States started the final well and led for the early stages.
But the Italians charged ahead over the closing laps, extending their advantage. When it ended, as Giovannini and Co. celebrated, Dawson, Lehman and Cepuran leaned over, hands on knees.
“There’s always going to be bitterness. We came out here to win,” Dawson said. “The last four years, the dream was to get gold at these Games. … This is the last go-round for us three.”
This was was supposed to be, the Americans hoped, the crowning achievement for a trio that set the current world mark in November and took home a bronze from the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Dawson, Lehman and Cepuran are fond of saying that they might not necessarily be the three strongest skaters, but they know they are the best team around, helped by advancements such as being at the forefront of the revolutionary switch to the pushing method and the use of computer technology to study aerodynamics.
They prioritize this event over individual races; indeed, Dawson withdrew from the Olympic 10,000 meters last week to focus on team pursuit.
But the Italians simply were better: The final was a rematch of a quarterfinal won by the Italians on Sunday. The Americans were able to remain in medal contention despite that loss because the four fastest quarterfinal times advanced out of that round and they were still second-best overall.
Still, Giovannini said, that quarterfinal result “helped, a lot, to reduce the American team’s certainty. They were the favorites and the team to beat. Beating them gave us some extra confidence.”
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