Italian skaters Davide Ghiotto, Michele Malfatti, and Andrea Giovannini downed reigning world champion and world record holder United States in the men's team pursuit final Tuesday, claiming gold for their first Olympic medal in the event since 2006 — both the last Italian-hosted Games and the first time the team pursuit was contested on the Olympic level.

Casey Dawson, Emery Lehman, and Ethan Cepuran crossed the finish line a staggering 4.51 seconds behind Italy for silver.

The two countries were neck and neck through the first half of Tuesday's final, both trios racing in near-perfect unity. Midway through the fifth lap, the Americans began to fall apart, tensing and dropping out of synch. Dawson, Lehman, and Cepuran lost over two seconds off their pace through the final three laps of the race.

With their third 1st-place finish of the 2026 Games, Italy now leads the gold medal count in speed skating. The Dutch, longtime giants in the sport, have two.

The Americans have dominated the men's team pursuit landscape over the last five years, using a new, unorthodox strategy the team developed in 2018. Since the 2021-21 season, they have claimed three world records, five straight World Cup season titles, 2022 Olympic bronze and 2025 world championship gold (though they skated their first world record with Joey Mantia, who retired in 2023, in place of Cepuran). 

The United States entered the Olympics riding a six-race undefeated run on the international stage. In each of their three World Cup races this season, Dawson, Lehman, and Cepuran crossed the finish line over 2.3 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.

Italy finished 2nd behind the United States at last year's world championships. In 2024, Italy won the world title, and the U.S. finished off the podium.

In Tuesday's B Final, China beat the Netherlands to bronze by a narrow 0.09 seconds for the country's first-ever medal in either the men's or women's team pursuit competition.

Canada fought hard for gold in the women's event, chipping away at an early Dutch lead for their second-straight Olympic title in the event.

The Canadian trio of Isabelle Weidemann, Ivanie Blondin, and Valerie Maltais climbed the podium thrice on the 2025-26 World Cup (1 gold, 2 silvers), entering the Olympics as the world's top-ranked team.

At 6-foot-1-inch tall, Weidemann often gets off to a slow start, but her long legs give the trio a boost as the race goes on. Blondin and Maltais, both much shorter at 5-foot-4, excel in the long distances, enabling them to keep up with Weidemann. Maltais finished on the 3000m podium in three of the four World Cup races this season (and claimed bronze in the event in Milan), and Blondin is the world No. 3 in the 16-lap mass start.

Joy Beune, who went undefeated in the 1500m on this year's World Cup, led the reigning world champion Dutch to silver with Antoinette Rijpma-de Jong and Marijke Groenewoud. The Netherlands has now made the podium in each of the last four Games.

Japan claimed bronze behind Miho Takagi, who became the second most decorated woman speed skater of all time with her 10th Olympic medal. The Netherlands' Ireen Wuest is the only other woman to claim more than 10 speed skating medals on the Olympic level (13).

The United States, racing with Brittany Bowe, Mia Manganello, and Greta Myers, finished 4th.