MILAN -- The U.S. trio of Casey Dawson, Emery Lehman and Ethan Cepuran easily reached the men's team pursuit final in speedskating at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Tuesday by defeating China in the semifinals.
The Americans, who set the world record in the event in November and took home a bronze from the 2022 Beijing Games, will face Italy for the gold later Tuesday. That's a rematch of a quarterfinal won by the Italians on Sunday.
The teams with the four fastest quarterfinal times moved on to the semifinals. The two semifinal head-to-head winners reached the final.
The United States trio built up a big lead against China and eased up down the stretch, finishing in 3 minutes, 44.29 seconds, enough to win by nearly 8 seconds.
Italy's Davide Ghiotto, Andrea Giovannini and Michele Malfatti beat Netherlands in the first semifinal, clocking 3:38.88, more than 1 1/2 seconds faster than the Dutch. Italy's only men's medal in team pursuit was the gold at the 2006 Turin Games.
China will race Netherlands for the men's bronze.
Two-time defending champion Norway was eliminated in the quarterfinals.
The two women's semifinals, later Tuesday, were the U.S. against 2022 gold medalist Canada, and the Netherlands against Japan.
In team pursuit, which was added to the Olympics in 2006, three skaters from each country participate together, and two teams race against the clock in each heat, starting at opposite sides of the track.
The women do six laps for a total of 2,400 meters; the men race eight laps covering 3,200 meters.
The U.S. never has won gold in women's or men's team pursuit. The women took home the bronze in 2018.
