Casey Dawson faced a unique challenge heading into the 2025-26 Speed Skating World Cup season.
It had nothing to do with skating. In fact, as one-third of the world record-holding U.S. men’s team pursuit trio, he was eager to get back on the ice as a unit with Emery Lehman and Ethan Cepuran and replicate their overwhelming success from the previous four seasons.
But as punishment for losing his fantasy football league, which he shares with Cepuran and Lehman, Dawson was forced to carry a pink backpack dotted with colorful hearts around the entire five-leg World Cup circuit. The sanction also included a big pink foot attached to his phone case.
Playing fantasy football is one of the many things Dawson, Lehman, and Cepuran do together off the ice, along with movie or game nights, golfing, and Secret Santa gift exchanges. When possible, they meet up once or twice a week away from the rink for some extra team bonding.
“We pretty much eat, sleep, and breathe team pursuit,” Dawson said. “We see each other every day, and we skate with each other every day.”
It’s an unofficial piece of a technique developed by the United States’ speed skating team in 2018. That year, the organization decided to diverge from the traditional approach to the team pursuit event in which the lead skater drops from the front to the back of the train every lap or two. Instead, the U.S. coaching staff combined and altered two pre-existing techniques, designating one skater to lead throughout the entire duration of the race and relying on pushes from the two following skaters to maintain the leader’s momentum.
In another unorthodox move, the team decided to train for the event consistently rather than prioritizing the skaters’ individual events and naming a team pursuit squad shortly before each competition, as many other countries typically did.
The Americans debuted their new strategy at the 2020 World Championships, where they finished 5th, just four seconds behind the 1st-place Dutch team. As longtime speed skating giants, the Netherlands had won seven-straight world titles and 11 of the previous 12 (the United States was the one interruption to the Netherlands’ streak, winning the title in 2011 with Shani Davis, Jonathan Kuck, and Trevor Marsicano). To finish within five seconds of a team as successful as the Dutch was seen as a victory in and of itself.
Then came the 2021-22 season. After breaking the Netherlands' world record at a World Cup event at their home rink in Salt Lake City, the U.S. squad — which then included Joey Mantia, who retired in 2023 — skated to the United States’ first-ever overall World Cup title in the distance. They’ve earned the title every year since, breaking the world record twice more in 2024 and 2025 and securing the country’s first world championship gold in the distance in 14 years.
Cepuran, Lehman, Dawson, and Mantia also took bronze at the 2022 Beijing Olympics for the United States’ first Olympic medal in the event since 2010. For each of the four skaters, the podium finish also marked their first on the Olympic stage.
"Four years prior, I don't know if any of us were thinking we'd even be in the next Olympics," Cepuran said.
Since finishing 2nd at the 2024-25 World Cup opener, Dawson, Lehman, and Cepuran have gone undefeated in international competition.
On the ice, they move almost perfectly in sync, with Dawson in the lead, Lehman in the middle, and Cepuran as the anchor. Their feet lift off the ground at the same time on each stride, they lean to nearly the same degree on each corner. From a head-on perspective, it looks as though only one skater is racing around the oval.
Though they each compete in individual events as well — Cepuran in the 1500m, 5000m, and mass start, Lehman in the 1500m, and Dawson in the three longer distances — they train for team pursuit just as much as their solo specialties.
“We have learned over practice that I have a consistent-enough track pattern that Emery and Ethan can follow pretty easily, and Emery follows so close to me like no one else can. Ethan has an extra little bit of acceleration [ability] from the mass start competitions he does, so he can build into us and push us out of the corners,” Dawson said. “Each one of us has perfected our position in a way. We just practice to perfection.”
In doing so, they’ve achieved a level of trust, communication, and skill that rivals few other teams, inspiring several of their opponents to adopt the same technique. But they all recognize the importance of “getting the competitive juices flowing,” even between the three of them. It’s part of why they play fantasy football and other games that pit them against each other.
“We’ve always wanted to compete against each other. Nobody wants to lose, and that’s something that’s driven us in practice as individuals,” Cepuran said. “We compete against each other to go and compete against the world and be ready for that.”
Together, they’ve achieved almost everything an athlete could want. There’s just one thing left on their list: Olympic gold.
If they can accomplish the task in February at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games, they'd be the first American trio to top the Olympic podium in the event.
“Winning world championships last year really built our confidence up,” Lehman said. “Going into the next Olympics, it’s a little different [than Beijing]. We’re still hungry, and we know we’re capable of putting it together at the right time.”
They’ll each need to qualify in their respective individual distances in order to compete together in Milan Cortina, and they’re all well on their way to doing so.
Through the first two World Cups, Lehman and Cepuran posted personal-best times in the 1500m. Cepuran added his second-fastest 5000m and earned a promotion to the mass start A Division.
Over the last year, Dawson has emerged as a serious medal contender in his two longest races. Since January 27, 2025, the 25-year-old has broken three national records in the 5000m, as well as one apiece in the 3000m and 10,000m. In the 10,000m, he shaved almost 10 seconds off the 20-year-old mark held by Chad Hedrick — the last U.S. man to earn an Olympic medal in the 5000m (gold) or the 10,000m (bronze). At the second World Cup this season, Dawson skated to his first individual World Cup podium finish, taking gold in the 5000m by just 0.02 seconds.
Their determination to earn another chance at winning Olympic gold is clear.
“This upcoming Games, we’re hoping to do something a little bit greater,” Dawson said. “We want to live up to our name as one of the top team pursuit teams in the world.”
After all, this is the last chance the trio will have to win it together, as Lehman is planning to retire after the Games in February.
Originally a hockey player, Lehman began speed skating at age 9 to improve his skating abilities. By 16, he had become the youngest skater to break 6:30 in the 5000m at World Cup Trials, finishing 2nd overall. At his first Olympic Trials, before the 2014 Sochi Games, Lehman won the 10,000m and placed 2nd in the 5000m to make his first Olympic team. He was a senior in high school at the time.
Now 29 years old, Lehman is ready to move on.
“I don’t feel that old, but I’ve also been doing this for a long time now … It’s been about half my life, so I think it’s a good time to hang it up,” Lehman said. “With setting the world records, winning Olympic medals, and becoming world champions, we really checked off a lot of the boxes I was hoping to check off as a skater. Obviously, there’s more I could have hoped for, but I also think I’m able to retire and have some things to be pretty proud of.”
Lehman first began training with the team pursuit squad in 2018, just as the U.S. team was developing its new strategy. Having been there since the beginning, he holds a unique understanding of just how drastically the United States’ technique has changed the landscape of team pursuit worldwide.
“I think that’s a pretty big testament to how innovative this strategy was, … to how well we really try to execute our strategy and race plan, rather than looking at each of us as an individual,” Lehman said. “We really just try to work as a team and know that we can get more out of it the more we work together.”
To Cepuran, 25, Lehman is not just a teammate, but also a mentor. The two grew up skating together outside Chicago, and for a few years, Lehman trained with Cepuran’s older brother as his coach.
To reach this level of success together adds to the pride Cepuran already feels being a part of the team.
“Emery was always at the top of his age group. He was always somebody I looked up to,” Cepuran said. “I never, ever imagined as a kid that we’d be at this point … [The team] wasn’t always this way. This is something that we’ve built.”
With just over one month left until speed skating begins in Milan Cortina on February 7, Dawson, Lehman, and Cepuran have remained in peak form. Through the first two World Cups this season, they collected gold twice, winning each race by 2.7 seconds. A win in the third and final team pursuit race of the circuit clinched a fifth-straight overall season title. They'll each look to clinch their Olympic berths in their individual distances at Olympic Trials Jan. 2-5.
Their success has, of course, come with external pressure and expectations, which they’re all confident they can fulfil. But for now, they’re riding the highs of their accomplishments, letting the momentum push them forward just as they do on the oval.
“Any time we step on the ice, we want to win. We put so much into this process, we just want to see it through,” Cepuran said. “If we go out and execute as well as we can and come up short, if another team beats us straight up, that sucks, but we [will have done] everything we could. We just want to see it through as best we can, and if that means an Olympic gold medal, then that’s pretty awesome.”