{"id":584326,"date":"2026-02-12T09:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/584326\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T09:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:34:17","slug":"olympic-ice-dance-french-beaudry-and-cizeron-beat-us-chock-and-bates-to-win-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/584326\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic ice dance: French Beaudry and Cizeron beat US Chock and Bates to win gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN (AP) \u2014 Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron arrived at the Milan Cortina Olympics<\/a> amid a swirl of controversy, with the French ice dancers hoping to upset the dominant American duo of Madison Chock and Evan Bates when it mattered most.<\/p>\n

They will leave with a gold medal.<\/p>\n

Maybe a little bit more controversy, too.<\/p>\n

Beaudry and Cizeron<\/a> answered a season-best free dance by Chock and Bates with a season best of their own Wednesday night, giving them 225.82 points and the top step of the podium. Chock and Bates finished with 224.39 and a bittersweet silver medal after having lost just four times in the four years since they finished fourth at the Beijing Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still in shock,\u201d said Cizeron, who also became the first skater to win back-to-back ice dance gold with different partners, having won previously with Gabriella Papadakis.<\/a> \u201cLooking back a year ago, when we started dreaming this, it\u2019s pretty incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were some who viewed their victory as unbelievable.<\/p>\n

Cizeron made several mistakes, including a glaring one during his twizzle sequence, while Chock and Bates were nearly perfect. Yet the French judge favored the French skaters by nearly eight points in the free dance, while five of the nine judges favored the American team. The other three that gave top marks to Beaudry and Cizeron did so by a slim margin.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Madison<\/p>\n

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States compete during the ice dancing free skate in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo\/Francisco Seco)<\/p>\n

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States compete during the ice dancing free skate in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo\/Francisco Seco)<\/p>\n

Add AP News on Google <\/p>\n

Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.<\/p>\n

Share<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like in life, sometimes you can feel like you do everything right and it doesn\u2019t go your way, and that\u2019s life in sports,\u201d said Bates, who along with Chock won a second straight gold medal in the team event earlier in the Winter Games. \u201cIt\u2019s a subjective sport. It is a judged sport. But I think one fact that is indisputable is that we delivered our best. We skated our best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even more awkward: The French and American teams are intimiately familiar with each other because they have the same coaches \u2014 Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenauer \u2014 and train at the renowned Ice Academy of Montreal.<\/p>\n

The Canadian team of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier earned the bronze medal with 217.74 points, pulling away from the Italian team of Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri and the British duo of Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson with a deeply emotional free skate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI usually prefer Guillaume and Laurence,\u201d Fabbri said, speaking candidly following the medal ceremony. \u201cBut today, in my opinion, they didn\u2019t skate so well. So I think Madison and Evan would have deserved to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beaudry and Cizeron arrived at the Winter Games with controversy hanging over them stemming from their former partners.<\/p>\n

This time last year, Beaudry was wondering whether she would even compete this season after Skate Canada banned her partner and longtime boyfriend, Nikolaj Sorensen, amid allegations of \u201csexual maltreatment.\u201d Beaudry has maintained his innocence and the suspension was overturned in June on jurisdictional grounds, but the case is still pending.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Laurence<\/p>\n

Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France react to their scores after competing during the ice dancing free skate in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo\/Natacha Pisarenko)<\/p>\n

Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France react to their scores after competing during the ice dancing free skate in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo\/Natacha Pisarenko)<\/p>\n

Add AP News on Google <\/p>\n

Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.<\/p>\n

Share<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

Cizeron stepped away from competition after the 2022 season, shortly after his Olympic triumph, and retired two years ago. But the chance to make a comeback with Beaudry, who was ninth with Sorensen at the Beijing Games, was too good to pass up.<\/p>\n

Beaudry and Cizeron won every event they entered this season save the Grand Prix Final, when they finished second to Chock and Bates in their previous head-to-head meeting. But their smooth ride to Milan was shaken up when Papadakis wrote in her new memoir that Cizeron had been demanding, controlling and manipulative<\/a> toward her \u2014 accusations he called a \u201csmear campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been quite a challenge that we set out to do,\u201d Cizeron said. \u201cI think from the beginning we tried to create a bubble where we really supported each other through everything, and we\u2019ve been through some incredibly hard moments. But I think the love we have for each other and for the sport really draws through, and it kind of helped us keep our heads on our shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beaudry and Cizeron hardly seemed distracted by any of it Monday night, when they edged Chock and Bates in the rhythm dance.<\/p>\n

The French team most definitely was not distracted by anything Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

It would have been easy to be thrown off, too, the way Chock and Bates performed in the minutes before them.<\/p>\n

Skating to an orchestral version of \u201cPaint it Black\u201d from the dystopian sci-fi show \u201cWestworld,\u201d they turned in the kind of program that they have spent the last 15 years together working toward. Every movement seemed to be in perfect harmony, and the flamenco-styled choreography had the crowd clapping along with them.<\/p>\n

The only question left was whether the husband-wife team had done enough to earn the one medal that has eluded them.<\/p>\n

It looked as if Beaudry and Cizeron gave them an opening with a bobble on their twizzles. But they soon settled into their program, set to the soundtrack from \u201cThe Whale,\u201d and moved as if they were under water with a marvelous degree of refined elegance.<\/p>\n

As their winning score was read, Chock and Bates joined the crowd inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena in politely applauding them.<\/p>\n

Then, an hour later, Chock was fighting back tears in a tunnel far from the ice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a bittersweet feeling at the moment,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have had the most incredible year \u2014 fifteen years on the ice together. First Olympics as a married couple. And we delivered four of our best performances this week. I think we\u2019re really proud of how we handled ourselves here and what we accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Winter Olympics: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN (AP) \u2014 Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron arrived at the Milan Cortina Olympics amid a swirl…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":584327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[224667,191963,214459,253217,249347,199904,253221,253211,253218,248986,253214,253222,253220,249345,253212,70415,253219,44831,253223,253215,253213,253216,235115,73152,62,67,132,68,75618],"class_list":["post-584326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-2026-milan-cortina-olympic-games","tag-2026-winter-olympics","tag-canada-olympic-team","tag-charlene-guignard","tag-evan-bates","tag-figure-skating","tag-gabriella-papadakis","tag-guillaume-cizeron","tag-ice-dancing","tag-italy-olympic-team","tag-laurence-fournier-beaudry","tag-lewis-gibson","tag-lilah-fear","tag-madison-chock","tag-marco-fabbri","tag-milan","tag-nikolaj-sorensen","tag-olympic-games","tag-patrice-lauzon","tag-paul-poirier","tag-piper-gilles","tag-romain-haguenauer","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-skating","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-winter-olympic-games"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}