Ice dance gold sparks outrage over French judge's 'nationalistic' scoring

Triple world ice dance champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates will leave Milano Cortina 2026 with silver medals, but also an outpouring of support from fans questioning the judging that denied them gold.

Debate around Thursday morning's (AEDT) ice dance victory by French duo Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron has sparked a petition on Change.org calling for the International Skating Union to review the scoring.

The controversy surrounds the scoring by French judge, Jezabel Dabouis, who fans argue cost Chock and Bates gold.

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Dabouis' scores differed drastically from her peers when it came to the French and American pairs. In the free dance, she scored the French pair 137.45 and the Americans 129.74. While hers was the second-highest score for the French pair, she was the only one to judge the Americans at less than 130. The difference in scores was the biggest of any of the judges.

In the rhythm dance earlier in the week, Dabouis awarded a near six-point difference between the two pairs.

The petition entitled "Require the IOC and ISU to Investigate the Judges Awarding France the Gold" had just shy of 9,000 signatures on Friday morning.

Bates said he and Chock, who married in 2024, had not seen the petition but had heard about it.

"It means a lot that people are voicing their opinions on our behalf," he said.

Chock, who had been a puddle of tears a night earlier, echoed that sentiment, saying the response from fans had helped soften the sting of the result.

"It's been incredible," the 33-year-old said. "We've really felt so much love and support in the last 24 hours and through the whole week, really, but especially since yesterday.

"It really means a lot to us to have so many people just appreciate our performance and what we've worked so hard for."

Chock said the confusion around the judging only underscored a broader challenge for ice dance as it seeks to grow its audience.

"Anytime the public is confused by results, it does a disservice to our sport," she said. "I think it's hard to retain fans when it's difficult to understand what is happening on the ice.

"There needs to be a lot more clarity for the skaters, for the coaches, and for the audience in order to just have a solid fan base moving forward. People need to understand what they're cheering for and be able to feel confident in the sport that they're supporting."

To make matters worse for the American pair, the French duo have been at the centre of another controversy for a number of years. They have been a pair for only a year after Beaudry's long-term skating and romantic partner, Nikolaj Sorensen, was banned for six years after he was accused of sexually assaulting a coach and former skater in 2012.

The ban was overturned on a technicality last June but is being reviewed.

In her column for USA Today, renowned sportswriter Christine Brennan wrote that the French pair winning gold in itself sent an "awful message to sexual abuse survivors and victims", while the judging controversy was a "slap in the face to Chock and Bates".

"If you're picking role models for your kids, you go with Chock and Bates 100 times out of 100," she wrote.

Despite the swirl around them, Chock and Bates said they were holding tight to the emotion of their performance and the belief it was the strongest of their career.

"We haven't studied (the scoring) in depth, but we did speak to our coach, and we did talk to each other, and we know how we felt on centre ice after we skated," Bates, 36, said.

"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."