The Drama Surrounding France’s Ice Dancing Olympic Gold Medalists Explained

French Olympians ​​Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron have been met with some controversy before and after winning gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron narrowly beat out Team USA skaters Madison Chock and Evan Bates for the gold medal during the final round of the Olympics ice dancing competition on Wednesday, February 11.

“It was a little hard, but I think the most important thing is the feeling that we had when we finished our skate,” Chock said during an interview on the Thursday, February 12, episode of Today. “We were so happy. We knew we left it all on the ice. We skated with our hearts, and I wouldn’t change anything about how we skated or our preparation or what we did to get to this point. And I’m just really proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron’s win came as a surprise, as they have only been ice dancing partners since March 2025. Chock and Bates, on the other hand, have skated together since 2011, have been married since 2024, and were the favorites going into this year’s Games.

Before they even hit the ice in Italy, Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron’s individual careers have each been met with controversy.

Scroll down to learn about the drama surrounding Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron’s 2026 Winter Olympics journey.

What is the controversy with ​​Laurence Fournier Beaudry?

Before she teamed up with Cizeron, Fournier Beaudry skated for several years with her boyfriend, Nikolaj Sorensen. In 2024, Sorensen received a six-year suspension from the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner after he was accused of sexual assault. According to CNN, the suspension came after an investigation into a 2012 incident involving a U.S. figure skater and their coach.

Sorensen denied the allegations, and his suspension was eventually overturned, but the scandal caused damage to his career. Fournier Beaudry and Sorensen are reportedly still dating as of the time of her gold medal win at the Olympics.

In order to compete at the Olympics, Fournier Beaudry began her partnership with Cizeron. “Today, the universe offers us a new adventure. A duo born from friendship, respect, and love for the sport,” the duo wrote in a March 2025 joint Instagram post. “A dance written by the years, and fueled by the fire of our dreams. A new story begins.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by ISU Figure Skating ⛸ (@isufigureskating)

What is the controversy with Guillaume Cizeron?

Like Fournier Beaudry, Cizeron has also faced issues with his former partner, Gabriella Papadakis. The skating duo announced they were taking a break after winning gold at the 2022 Beijing Olympics and announced their retirement two years later.

Related

Which 2026 Olympic Ice Dancing Pairs Are Married or Dating?

While Cizeron has continued to skate with Fournier Beaudry, Papadakis accused her former partner of being “controlling” and “demanding” in her memoir, So as Not to Disappear, which was released ahead of the Games in January. In an interview with L’Équipe last month, Papadakis claimed she dropped from her Olympic commentator role for NBC as a result of her book allegations, per the Associated Press.

“As long as I took a backseat role while Guillaume was the leader, everything went well,” she claimed. “It’s when I wanted to be an equal in this relationship that things started to become more and more difficult.”

Cizeron, for his part, denied her accusations in a statement of his own. “In the face of the smear campaign targeting me, I want to express my incomprehension and my disagreement with the labels being attributed to me,” he said, per the AP. “These allegations arise at a particularly sensitive time…thereby raising questions about the underlying intentions behind this campaign.”

Cizeron added, “I also wish to denounce the content of the book, which contains false information attributing to me, among other things, statements I have never made and which I consider serious.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Madison Chock (@madisonchock)

Why are Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron getting backlash for winning gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics?

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron ended the 2026 Winter Olympics ice dancing competition with a score of 225.8, while Chock and Bates fell right behind with a score of 224.39. That scoring has come under fire, particularly with the discrepancy among some of the scores.

The majority of judges gave better scores to Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron for their rhythm dance routine, with five of six judges putting the pair within 3.5 points of Chock and Bates’ score, per NBC News. A judge from France, however, gave their country’s duo a score 5.74 points higher than Chock and Bates.

In the free dance, however, five of the nine judges ranked Chock and Bates in first place rather than Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron. The French judge once again ranked the country’s pair higher than the U.S. duo, with a score 7.71 points above their score for Chock and Bates. “None of the judges who scored Chock and Bates first gave them more than a 4.1-point advantage over Cizeron and Beaudry, including a judge from the United States,” according to NBC News.

Chock and Bates performed second-to-last in the competition and sat in first place following their performance, until Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron beat their score by just over one point.

“I feel like life is sometimes you can feel like you do everything right and it doesn’t go your way, and that’s life, and that’s sport,” Bates said after he and Chock took home silver, per the outlet. “And it’s a subjective sport. It’s a judged sport.”