After all the leaps and pirouettes comes another twist in figure skating at the Winter Olympics, where a French judge has been accused of ‘rigging’ the competition to secure gold for her compatriots and condemn Team USA to heartbreak.
On Wednesday in Milan, America’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates were dramatically denied victory by a French pair shrouded in controversy – despite believing they delivered a ‘flawless, gold-medal performance.’
Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron – whose personal lives have both been engulfed in scandal – won gold with a total score of 225.82, just 1.43 points more than Team USA. Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier won bronze.
Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron were seen sobbing after their victory, but their win is now under the microscope after the scores of French judge Jezabel Dabouis emerged online.
In the free dance, on Wednesday night, Dabouis awarded Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron 137.45 points – the second-highest total of any judge. She was also the only judge not to award Team USA more than 130 points (129.74).
By comparison, the US and Chinese judges gave America’s husband and wife pair – four-time Olympians- respective scores of 137.67 and 136.95.
Team USA were dramatically denied Olympic gold by France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron in the figure skating
Madison Chock and Evan Bates were forced to settle for silver with a score of 224.49 in Milan
Jezabel Dabouis, the French judge on the panel for the Winter Olympics competition
Meanwhile, the difference between Dabouis’s scores for the USA and France was nearly eight points – significantly more than any other judge on the panel – and in another cruel twist, five of the nine judges gave Chock and Bates the highest score in the free dance, compared to four who ranked France No 1.
Similar issues emerged in the rhythm dance section of the competition, where Dabouis gave France the highest score by far (93.34). That is nearly six points higher than she scored for the US, 87.6, which was the second lowest of any judge.
Interestingly, none of the nine judges scored the US lower than second in the rankings, with three putting them No 1, but two judges – from Great Britain and Germany – put France in third place. Still, though, Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron finished 0.46 points clear at the top.
Coincidentally, the American judge was left out of the scoring panel for the rhythm dance section of the competition.
On both occasions, French judge Dabouis helped widen the gap between France and the United States and fans have suggested she deliberately ‘rigged’ the results.
‘The[re] must be an investigation!’ one user fumed on social media. ‘This is a judging scandal,’ another said. ‘There aren’t many times in sports where several times over it seems to be rigged… Chock and Bates (and others) got robbed.’
It is not the first time that a French figure skating judge has found themselves at the epicenter of a scandal.
Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron were seen sobbing after their victory but fans are unhappy
Back in 2002, at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Marie-Reine Le Gougne allegedly succumbed to pressure from her federation to award a gold-medal score to the Russian pair Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, leaving Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier with the silver.
The International Skating Union (ISU) suspended Le Gougne for three years and barred her from the 2006 Turin Olympics. The scandal, purportedly part of a vote-trading scheme in skating, ushered in sweeping reforms to judging.
Following their silver-medal heartbreak, Chock and Bates were asked whether they felt the judges had been fair. ‘It was our gold medal performance,’ Bates said. ‘It was the best that we could skate.’
Chock added: ‘We put out our very best skates every time we took Olympic ice… they were flawless for us.
‘We couldn’t have skated any better, and we’re super proud with how we took the ice, how we handled ourselves every time. The rest is out of our hands.’ The Daily Mail has contacted the IOC for comment.
Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron, meanwhile, only teamed up in March last year and over the past 12 months, Dabouis has judged in six of their competitions. The French pair has won five of the events.
That is despite their brief career together being dogged by ‘toxic’ allegations about their pasts.
Fournier Beaudry has faced intense scrutiny over her relationship with boyfriend and former skating partner, Nikolaj Sorensen, who was suspended in 2024 following allegations of a 2012 sexual assault involving a former skater and coach.
‘We couldn’t have skated any better, and we’re super proud,’ Chock said after the event
Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier took the bronze medal with a score of 217.74
He denied the accusations and, though his six-year suspension from Skate Canada was eventually overturned on a technicality, the scandal effectively ended his competitive career. Fournier Beaudry recently lamented the situation in the Netflix docuseries ‘Glitter & Gold’, claiming the ordeal ruined her partner’s life.
Meanwhile, Cizeron arrived in Milan facing explosive claims from his former gold-medal-winning partner, Gabriella Papadakis.
In an interview ahead of her memoir ‘So as Not to Disappear’, Papadakis described Cizeron as ‘controlling, demanding and critical.’ She wrote that she felt under his ‘control’ and was ‘terrified’ of being alone with him during their time as a world-leading pair.
Cizeron has hit back at the claims, labeling them a ‘smear campaign’ and confirming he is pursuing legal action. ‘I want to express my incomprehension and disagreement with the labels attributed to me,’ he told Reuters. ‘The book contains false information, including statements I never made, which I consider serious.’
