While the results are in, the drama around the figure skating final isn’t over as a scoring pattern has been found behind American duo Madison Chock and Evan Bates’ silver medals.
The married couple was the gold medal favorites heading into the final Wednesday despite being just 0.46 points behind the leading French pair of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron after Monday’s river dance event.
However, they were narrowly defeated by the French duo and French judge Jézabel Dabois is under fire in an ice skating scandal that has found a new twist.
She scored the American pair significantly lower than the rest of the judges panel while noticeably over-grading Beaudry and Cizeron — and it has become a pattern for over a year.
Chock and Bates performed their free dance to “Paint It Black” from the sci-fi show “Westworld” and earned a score of 134.67.
Beaudry and Cizeron skated to the soundtrack from “The Whale” and Cizeron made an error during an element to make for a less-clean performance than the American pair.
Yet, the French earned a 135.64 and their combined scored (225.82) left Chock and Bates (224.39) just 1.43 points shy of gold.
Per SkatingScores.com, Dabois undervalued Chock and Bates by -7.19 points, while she gave Beaudry and Cizeron 6.45 points above the mean score, which resulted in a +13.64 point margin in favoring the French in the final score.
Meanwhile, five of the nine judges had Team USA ahead but Dabois’ scoring erased that lead.
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Similarly, at the 2026 European Championships, the French judge granted Beaudry and Cizeron a big score in the free skate while simultaneously wildly underscoring the other threats for gold — Italy and the United Kingdom.
She also was completely inconsistent at the 2025 Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Japan, giving the French pair huge marks despite missing an element and experiencing a fall that should have kept them off the podium in the ice dance event.
When asked if there should be any changes in the way ice skating is judged in the future, Chock told CBS she would like to see more transparency for the viewers and a vetting process for judges.
“[It would] definitely be helpful if it’s more understandable for the viewers, to just see more transparent judging and understand … what’s really going on,” she said.
“I think it’s also important for the skaters, that the judges be vetted and reviewed to make sure that they are also putting out their best performance because there’s a lot on the line for the skaters when they’re out there giving it their all, and we deserve to have the judges also giving us their all and for it to be a fair and even playing field.”
Additionally, the pairing of Beaudry and Cizeron was already controversial heading into the Games.
The two came together after Beaudry’s partner and boyfriend was suspended by Canadian figure skating due to sexual abuse allegations.
Beaudry then renounced Canada and joined the French figure skating team and has continued to fiercely defend her boyfriend in the process.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
