The ‘rigging’ scandal engulfing the Winter Olympics is showing no signs of slowing down after Team USA’s gutted ice skaters called for the judges to be ‘vetted’, and thousands of fans urged the authorities to investigate.
French judge Jezabel Dabouis sparked fury this week after allegations she ‘rigged’ her votes to help her country to Winter Olympics gold, in turn voting down Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who eventually ended up with the silver.
In the past 24 hours, more than 14,000 fans have signed a Change.org petition calling for the IOC and International Skating Union to intervene and launch a probe into the voting process, but so far nothing has been forthcoming.
In fact, the ISU has opted to stand by her, issuing its first statement late on Thursday.
‘It is normal for there to be a range of scores given by different judges in any panel and a number of mechanisms are used to mitigate these variations,’ it read, adding it has ‘full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.’
Chock and Bates have since spoken to CBS News about the dubious judging after allegations the competition was ‘rigged’ against them.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates were left heartbroken after missing out on Olympic gold
Team USA were dramatically denied by France’s Beaudry and Cizeron in the figure skating
Chock said: ‘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.
‘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.
‘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.’
French ice dancing couple Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron stunned the world when they came out victorious for France at the Milan-Cortina Games on Wednesday.
Judge Dabouis favored Beaudry and Cizeron by nearly eight points over the three-time world champions in the free dance, a margin so large that if her score was removed from the equation, Chock and Bates would have won gold.
There is little recourse for the US pair if the global governing body is unwilling to investigate the scoring discrepancy.
This is not the first time Dabouis has turned in questionable scores for Beaudry and Cizeron. Last year, at the Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Japan, the French pair missed one element of their routine and also had a fall which would usually keep them well away from the podium places. Dabouis rewarded them with a superb score and they took silver.
The French judge also had a wide margin favoring her country in the Olympic rhythm dance, when they also beat the US team.
‘Any time the public is confused by results, it does a disservice to our sport,’ said Chock, who along with Bates won a second straight team gold medal earlier in the Games. ‘I think it’s hard to retain fans when it’s difficult to understand what is happening on the ice.
‘People need to understand what they’re cheering for and be able to feel confident in the sport that they’re supporting.’
‘We couldn’t have skated any better, and we’re super proud,’ Chock said after the event
By Friday morning, nearly 14,000 furious fans had signed a petition urging an investigation
Jezabel Dabouis, the French judge on the panel for the Winter Olympics competition
The most famous judging controversy in Olympic figure skating also involved a French judge.
During the 2002 Salt Lake Games, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia won gold over the Canadian pair Jamie Sale and David Pelletier.
But allegations of vote-swapping and selling of votes by French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne led to an investigation by the ISU and the International Olympic Committee, and she was ultimately found guilty of misconduct and suspended.
Sale and Pelletier ultimately were elevated to gold while the Russian pair was allowed to keep their medals.
Two years later, the ISU eliminated its 6.0 judging system due to its inherent subjectivity. The replacement system, which has been tweaked over the years but remains in place, features two scores added together: one where each element is graded off a base value to establish a technical score and another where judges provide a component score for overall skating skill and performance.
‘We did speak to our coach, and we did talk to each other, and we know how we felt on center ice after we skated,’ Bates said of the silver medal.
‘We felt like we delivered our absolute best performance that we could have. It was our Olympic moment. It felt like a winning skate to us and that’s what we’re going to hold on to.’
‘There must be an investigation!’ one user fumed on social media as news of the potential scandal began to surface.
‘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.’
Beaudry and Cizeron entered the competition already under a cloud of controversy
Scoring from the European Championships shows Dabouis gave the French pair higher marks than the average from fellow judges once again
There was a huge outcry among both viewers and fellow competitors, with American figure skater Ellie Kam describing her compatriots as ‘true champions’, on Instagram.
Meanwhile, the gold medal-winning French pair have been 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.
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.’
