Milan, 17 February. (LaPresse) – Italy's 24th medal at the Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina, its ninth gold, comes from speed skating. In the men's team pursuit final at the Speed Skating Arena in Rho, the Italian trio of Davide Ghiotto, Andrea Giovannini and Michele Malfatti won a historic gold medal. Facing the formidable United States (Casey Dawson, Emery Lehman and Ethan Cepuran), world record holders, the Italians finished with a time of 3'39"20. They beat the Americans by +4.51 seconds. Today's medal is Italy's second in the men's speed skating pursuit at the Winter Olympics, after the gold medal won exactly twenty years ago in Turin in 2006 by the quartet of Fabris, Anesi, Sanfratello and Donagrandi. For the record, the bronze medal went to China, which surprisingly beat the Netherlands by just +0.09 thousandths of a second in the B final.