Madison Chock and Evan Bates claimed a silver medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Wednesday following a stunning free dance routine, falling just 1.43 points behind Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, the controversial duo from France.
The Americans were 0.46 points behind Beaudry and Cizeron in the rhythm dance program on Monday. They performed Wednesday's free dance program to "Paint It Black" from the dystopian sci-fi show "Westworld", scoring 134.67, and waited for the French's turn on the ice. Beaudry and Cizeron scored 135.64, edging out the married American couple by 0.94 points in the free dance.
Chock and Bates have been skating together for 15 years. They got married in 2024.
In the team event, for which they helped Team USA win itssecond consecutive gold, Chock and Bates dominated therhythm danceand the free dance in what is their fourth consecutive Winter Olympic Games together. While they have two golds together in the team event, Wednesday's silver is their first Olympic medal in ice dance.
Controversy behind French ice dance duo
Beaudry and Cizeron have been a pair for less than a year. Cizeron previously won gold in the ice dance event at the 2022 Winter Olympics with then partner Gabriella Papadakis.
Cizeron needed a new partner after Papadakis retired in 2024. She has since accused him of abusive behavior, alleging he was "controlling" and "demanding," CBS News partnerBBC News reported. He countered that Papadakis had spread false information about him in a "smear campaign."
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Beaudry was born in Montreal and has spent most of her career representing Canada, but she was granted French citizenship last November. She asked Cizeron to team up after her former partner, Nikolaj Sørensen, was suspended by Skate Canada after an American skater accused him of sexual assault.
The suspension was overturned in June on jurisdictional grounds, but the case is still pending, The Associated Press reported. Beaudry has also maintained his innocence, showing her support for her former partner as recently as earlier this month.
In the Netflix docuseries "Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing" — released on Feb. 1 and features Chock and Bate, Beaudry and Cizeron, and Canadian pair Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who placed third on Wednesday — Beaudry said "I never really publicly discuss about how much damage it's created."
"When they decided to suspend him, it meant that his career was over, which also meant that my career was over," she said in the three-episode docuseries.
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