A trio of Utah residents took silver in the men’s speedskating team pursuit at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics Tuesday.
Ethan Cepuran, Casey Dawson and Emery Lehman completed the course in 3:43.71 — 4.51 seconds behind gold medalists Italy.
“There’s always going to be bitterness. We came out here to win. The last four years was the dream to get gold at these Games. Today, we put in the effort we could and we tried our best. We put it all out there on the ice,” Lehman told the media afterward. “I’m just proud of these boys. We skated the hardest we could, and ultimately it didn’t work out in our favor. A medal is a medal; we’re always going to be proud about that.”
‘We earned our silver medal’
The three Americans had beaten China by 7.93 seconds in the semifinals held earlier Tuesday, with a time of 3:44.29, to advance to the finals. China then beat the Netherlands to win bronze.
“You can’t just be the best going in, you have to be the best on the day you compete,” Lehman said. “Italy was the best today and in every round. They’re the fastest time, they’re the best team. You could say we lost gold, but I think they’re just more prepared for the Olympics. They won that gold medal, and I think we earned our silver medal.”
Cepuran credited the home crowd of Italian fans as well as the “awesome” American fans.
“We knew it was going to be a battle through and through and that none of this was a given, none of this is guaranteed from the quarterfinal to the semi to the final. We had to be showing up each and every time on that line to make this happen. At the end of the day, we’re walking away with hardware, which is awesome,” he said.
Cepuran, Dawson and Lehman earned praise from gold medalist Andrea Giovannini, who told the media that the Americans inspired the Italian team.
“The Americans have really been an inspiration for us because in this four-year period, in these last two years, they have almost always won. They forced us to do everything in training, even (coach) Maurizio (Marchetto) kept inventing different trainings to try to raise the level,” Giovannini said in his Olympics press conference.
He added that he knew the gold was Italy’s halfway through the final, “but I want to make a mention precisely for the American team because it forced us, inspired us to raise our level.”
The end of an era
After seven years together, this was the trio’s final Olympics as a team.
“It’s a little bittersweet because you want to go out on top and send Emery off with a bang. There’s nothing like being able to celebrate across the line. That’s the thing that I miss most already, just being able to celly (celebrate) a little bit. Those are the moments that will stick with me forever,” Cepuran said. “Just being able to go across the line, put your hands up and just be like, ‘heck, yeah, we did it.’”
Cepuran, Dawson and Lehman won bronze together at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, which Dawson spoke about on Tuesday.
“In Beijing, that bronze-medal match made us bitter. We wanted to be in the gold-silver (final). So making that gold-silver match, being against Italy, (is) something that we’ll always look back on and be like, ‘We did that’. So it’s super cool,” he said.
Dawson hopes to “keep the legacy going.”
“We have a new generation of skaters coming up. For me personally, I’ll probably be focusing more on individual events over the next four years,” he said. “We have a couple of younger skaters that we need to develop. No one nearly strong enough yet, but we’re trying to get them there.”