The French cheat again on the ice!

snitzoid
2 hours ago
4 min read

Look at those fricken French skaters (photo below) all out of focus in the corner. Somebody got paid off. I saw the whole thing...their routine wasn't near Gold Medal material and I believe me I know a thing or two about skating.

Think this is the first time the French played dirty in skating. Oh NO! 2002 in Salt Lake. I still break down in tears when I think back. I've never been the same.

The horrendous details (Claude Ai)

The most famous French skating scandal in Olympic history was the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics pairs figure skating judging scandal.

French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne admitted to being pressured to vote for the Russian pair Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze over the Canadian pair Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, as part of a vote-trading deal. The head of the French skating federation, Didier Gailhaguet, was alleged to have arranged the scheme — exchanging favorable scores for the Russians in pairs in return for Russian support of the French ice dance team.

The scandal led to massive public outcry, and ultimately the ISU awarded a second gold medal to the Canadian pair (so both teams received gold). Le Gougne was suspended, and Gailhaguet was also sanctioned.

Did Controversial Judging Cost U.S. Figure Skaters a Gold Medal?

In notoriously subjective ice dance, the Olympic title came down to the Americans, their French rivals and the only people whose opinions mattered: the nine judges

By Louise Radnofsky, WSJ

Feb. 12, 2026 10:00 am ET

An Olympic ice dance judging controversy erupted after a French duo won gold over American favorites Madison Chock and Evan Bates.

MILAN—When they stepped off the ice on Wednesday night, Madison Chock and Evan Bates believed they had delivered a performance worthy of Olympic gold.

America’s top ice dancers came to the Winter Games as three-time reigning world champions. Once they received their score that put them in first place, Chock and Bates watched the last dance of the night—and the one team between them and the top of the podium.

Despite skating together for less than a year, the French duo of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron had the lead when the night began. But with the Olympic title on the line, they made visible errors. When it became clear that the gold medal was in the hands of the judges, the entire arena held its breath.

As soon as the French edged out the Americans, figure skating officially had its Olympic judging controversy.

“It’s a subjective sport,” Bates said. “We felt like we were very close. We felt like we skated a winning performance.”

If there were any event in figure skating that was going to descend into a judging debacle, it was always going to be ice dance. Once the scores were in, the scoring questions were inevitable.

Why wasn’t Cizeron penalized more on his messy twizzles? What about the French team’s wobbly step sequence? Were Chock and Bates’s own slips dinged too harshly?

What about the French judge? What about the American judge? What about the Spanish judge?

Unlike memorable judging furors from the 1990s and 2000s, this time there was social media for angry fans to dissect videos and zoom in on every potential misstep.

And they were already in a frenzy over the French ice dancers long before the Olympics.

Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry made visible errors with the Olympic title on the line.

Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry made visible errors with the Olympic title on the line. Paul Kitagaki Jr./ZUMA Press

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron were only a team because her longtime boyfriend and dance partner for Team Canada was suspended from the sport. When Canada’s sports integrity body found that Nikolaj Sørensen sexually assaulted an American skater in 2012, his career was over—and it appeared hers was, too.

Then she paired up with Cizeron, who came to Milan with his own baggage. He won Olympic gold in 2022 with Gabriella Papadakis, but they never competed together again after that year. In an explosive book published last month, Papadakis called him “demanding” and “controlling.” Cizeron denies the allegations.

The hastily arranged partnership of Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron arrived as a gold-medal contender—and villains in the eyes of figure skating’s most passionate fans.

The whole sport knew they would be vying for first with Chock and Bates, a married couple that has skated together for more than a decade and in three previous Winter Games.

Even after both teams were off the ice on Wednesday night, it seemed like the gold could go either way. Everyone had an opinion. The only ones that mattered belonged to the nine judges.

“That’s just how it shakes out,” Chock said, through tears.

Winter Olympics: Italy 2026

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Did Controversial Judging Cost U.S. Figure Skaters a Gold Medal?

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