TURIN, Italy (AP) – Chad Hedrick’s hope of matching Eric Heiden’s record five gold medals in a Winter Olympics ended Wednesday night when the Americans were eliminated in the quarterfinals of team pursuit.

Hedrick, KC Boutiette and Charles Ryan Leveille lost to the Italian team of Matteo Anesi, Stefano Donagrandi and Enrico Fabris by nearly a half-second after leading through the first four laps.

Hedrick and Leveille were first across the finish line, but Boutiette lagged about 10 feet behind. The Italians crossed together, giving them the victory.

A team wins when its third skater crosses the finish line.

Leveille led the Americans around the oval on the last lap, with Hedrick nearly overrunning him and pushing on his younger teammate’s backside. Boutiette had no chance to make up the gap with his teammates.

Hedrick, who won the 5,000 meters, was clearly frustrated, smacking his hands together on the cooldown lap.

The Americans were without Shani Davis, who skipped the new two-day pursuit event to concentrate on his individual races. His decision dealt a blow to U.S. hopes for a medal.

Davis would have had two days’ rest before skating the 1,000 on Saturday, when he and Hedrick will resume their rivalry. However, he said last week that he wouldn’t be available.

The United States saved Hedrick for the eight-lap quarterfinals, using Derek Parra, Clay Mull and Leveille in the preliminary time trial, where they finished next-to-last among eight teams.

In Thursday’s semifinals, the Netherlands skates against Italy and Norway takes on Canada.

In the women’s pursuit, Americans Jennifer Rodriguez, Maria Lamb and Catherine Raney were eliminated from medal contention in the six-lap quarterfinals. They lost by 3.35 seconds to Canadians Kristina Groves, Cindy Klassen and Christine Nesbitt.

Norway was knocked out when Annette Bjelkevik fell on the backstretch with 1 1/2 laps to go and her team leading Japan by more than a second. Japan will skate against Canada in Thursday’s semifinals.

The powerful German trio of Daniela Anschuetz Thoms, Anni Friesinger and Claudia Pechstein defeated their Dutch rivals Renate Groenwold, Paulien van Deutekom and Ireen Wust by 2.13 seconds to set up a semifinal against Russia.

In the preliminaries, Americans Margaret Crowley, Lamb and Amy Sannes had a poor time trial to set up the unfavorable quarterfinal against Canada.

In the pursuit, two teams of three skaters start simultaneously on each side of the oval and take turns leading the team. The other skaters draft closely behind the leader, with the teams completing the race when the third skater crosses the finish line.

Competition starts with preliminary time trials to establish rankings for the elimination rounds. In the quarterfinals, the top-ranked team takes on the eighth-ranked team and so on. Four quarterfinal winners advance to Thursday’s semifinals, with the top two teams skating later in the evening for gold. The semifinal losers compete for bronze.