The U.S. men lost out on the Olympic gold in the team pursuit event of speed skating, with Italy edging them out in the gold medal race.
That wasn’t the only L the Italians handed out on Tuesday, Feb. 17, inside the Milano Speed Skating Stadium in Milan.
As Italy celebrated its ninth gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, a member of its team pulled out Steph Curry’s iconic ‘night night’ celebration against Team USA.
Ouch. Yikes. What a tough look for the Americans.
Italy finished with a time of 3:39.20 in the finals, 4.51 seconds better than Team USA. The loss for the American team — made up of Casey Dawson, Ethan Cepuran and Emery Lehman — came after it defeated China by a whopping 7.93 seconds in the semifinals at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
It is the second loss of the Winter Olympics for the Americans against the Italians, as they lost to the home country in the quarterfinals on Sunday, finishing .97 seconds behind them (while still qualifying for the semifinals with the second-best time of the round).
The silver medal is an improvement from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics for the Americans after they won bronze four years ago in the event.
The silver medal for the Americans is Team USA’s 20th overall Olympic medal at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, and their ninth silver medal, which leads all countries. The Americans’ 20 medals are good for third place on the leaderboard, with Norway and Italy finishing out of the top three at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.
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