BERGAMO, Italy (AP) — Atalanta beat Roma 2-1 and secured a third-place finish in Serie A on Monday and a place in next year’s Champions League.
The victory moved the Bergamo club seven points clear of Juventus and Lazio with only two rounds remaining. The top four qualify automatically for next season’s Champions League.
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Roma's Bryan Cristante, third right, celebrates with his teammates after scoring his side's first goal during the Serie A soccer match between Atalanta Bergamo and AS Roma in Bergamo, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Stefano Nicoli/LaPresse via AP)
Atalanta's Lazar Samardzic, left, and his teammates celebrate their side's second goal during the Serie A soccer match between Atalanta Bergamo and AS Roma in Bergamo, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Stefano Nicoli/LaPresse via AP)
Venezia's Gaetano Oristanio celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Serie A soccer match between Venezia and Fiorentina in Venice, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)
Venezia's Fali Cande celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the Serie A soccer match between Venezia and Fiorentina in Venice, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)
Venezia's Gaetano Oristanio, right, and Fiorentina's Marin Pongracic, left, challenge for the ball during the Serie A soccer match between Venezia and Fiorentina in Venice, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)
Nigeria international Ademola Lookman put Atalanta ahead in the ninth minute with his 15th league goal.
Former Atalanta midfielder Bryan Cristante leveled with a header before halftime.
The clincher came from Ibrahim Sulemana.
All was not lost for Roma. The capital club was sixth, one point behind Juventus and Lazio.
Venezia beat Fiorentina 2-1 and took a giant step towards securing its Serie A status for another year.
It rose out of the relegation zone and into fourth-from-last place. The last three teams go down and with two matches left to play Venezia holds its destiny in its own hands.
It is a point above Lecce and Empoli, and its two final games are at Cagliari and at home to Juventus.
Fali Cande on the hour mark and Gaetano Oristanio eight minutes later put Venezia in the driving seat at Stadio Pierluigi Penzo. Rolando Mandragora pulled a goal back for the visitor with 13 minutes remaining.
The result was a massive blow to Fiorentina’s hopes of securing European football next season. It remained ninth, three places and four points outside the European spots.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Roma's Bryan Cristante, third right, celebrates with his teammates after scoring his side's first goal during the Serie A soccer match between Atalanta Bergamo and AS Roma in Bergamo, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Stefano Nicoli/LaPresse via AP)
Atalanta's Lazar Samardzic, left, and his teammates celebrate their side's second goal during the Serie A soccer match between Atalanta Bergamo and AS Roma in Bergamo, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Stefano Nicoli/LaPresse via AP)
Venezia's Gaetano Oristanio celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Serie A soccer match between Venezia and Fiorentina in Venice, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)
Venezia's Fali Cande celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the Serie A soccer match between Venezia and Fiorentina in Venice, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)
Venezia's Gaetano Oristanio, right, and Fiorentina's Marin Pongracic, left, challenge for the ball during the Serie A soccer match between Venezia and Fiorentina in Venice, Italy, Monday, May 12, 2025. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)
RHO, Italy (AP) — No ice is colder and harder than speedskating ice. The precision it takes has meant that Olympic speedskaters have never competed for gold on a temporary indoor rink – until the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games.
In the pursuit of maximum glide and minimum friction, Olympic officials brought on ice master Mark Messer, a veteran of six previous Olympic speedskating tracks and the ice technician in charge of the Olympic Oval in Calgary, Canada — one of the fastest tracks in the world with over 300 records.
Messer has been putting that experience to work one thin layer of ice at a time since the end of October at the new Speed Skating Stadium, built inside adjacent trade fair halls in the city of Rho just north of Milan.
“It’s one of the biggest challenges I’ve had in icemaking,’’ Messer said during an interview less than two weeks into the process.
If Goldilocks were a speedskater, hockey ice would be medium hard, for fast puck movement and sharp turns. Figure skating ice would be softer, allowing push off for jumps and so the ice doesn’t shatter on landing. Curling ice is the softest and warmest of all, for controlled sliding.
For speedskating ice to be just right, it must be hard, cold and clean. And very, very smooth.
“The blades are so sharp, that if there is some dirt, the blade will lose the edge,’’ Messer said, and the skater will lose speed.
Speedskater Enrico Fabris, who won two Olympic golds in Turin in 2006, has traded in his skates to be deputy sports manager at the speedskating venue in Rho. For him, perfect ice means the conditions are the same for all skaters — and then if it's fast ice, so much the better.
"It's more of a pleasure to skate on this ice,'' he said.
Messer’s first Olympics were in Calgary in 1988 — the first time speedskating was held indoors. “That gave us some advantages because we didn’t have to worry about the weather, wind blowing or rain,’’ he said. Now he is upping the challenge by becoming the first ice master to build a temporary rink for the Olympics.
Before Messer arrived in Italy, workers spent weeks setting up insulation to level the floor and then a network of pipes and rubber tubes that carry glycol — an antifreeze — that is brought down to minus 7 or minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 to 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit) to make the ice.
Water is run through a purification system — but it can’t be too pure, or the ice that forms will be too brittle. Just the right amount of impurities “holds the ice together,’’ Messer said.
The first layers of water are applied slowly, with a spray nozzle; after the ice reaches a few centimeters it is painted white — a full day’s work — and the stripes are added to make lanes.
“The first one takes about 45 minutes. And then as soon as it freezes, we go back and do it again, and again and again. So we do it hundreds of times,’’ Messer said.
As the ice gets thicker, and is more stable, workers apply subsequent layers of water with hoses. Messer attaches his hose to hockey sticks for easier spreading.
What must absolutely be avoided is dirt, dust or frost — all of which can cause friction for the skaters, slowing them down. The goal is that when the skaters push “they can go as far as possible with the least amount of effort,’’ Messer said.
The Zamboni ice resurfacing machine plays a key role in keeping the track clean, cutting off a layer and spraying water to make a new surface.
One challenge is gauging how quickly the water from the resurfacing machine freezes in the temporary rink.
Another is getting the ice to the right thickness so that the Zamboni, weighing in at six tons, doesn’t shift the insulation, rubber tubing or ice itself.
“When you drive that out, if there’s anything moving it will move. We don’t want that,’’ Messer said.
The rink got its first big test on Nov. 29-30 during a Junior World Cup event. In a permanent rink, test events are usually held a year before the Olympics, leaving more time for adjustments. “We have a very small window to learn,’’ Messer acknowledged.
Dutch speedskater Kayo Vos, who won the men’s neo-senior 1,000 meters, said the ice was a little soft — but Messer didn’t seem too concerned.
“We went very modest to start, now we can start to change the temperatures and try to make it faster and still maintain it as a safe ice,’’ he said.
Fine-tuning the air temperature and humidity and ice temperature must be done methodically — taking into account that there will be 6,000 spectators in the venue for each event. The next real test will be on Jan. 31, when the Olympians take to the ice for their first training session.
“Eighty percent of the work is done but the hardest part is the last 20 percent, where we have to try to find the values and the way of running the equipment so all the skaters get the same conditions and all the skaters get the best conditions,’’ Messer said.
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Serpentines are set on the ice of the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Workers clean the ice surface during a peed skating Junior World Cup and Olympic test event, in Rho, near Milan, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
