Gay ice dancer Guillaume Cizeron's gold medal is questioned as judging scandal heats up

French gay ice dancer Guillaume Cizeron and his partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry have been mired in scandal and controversy since the pair entered the Olympics, but things went into overdrive this week when accusations that a French judge showed favoritism started swirling.

Cizeron and Beaudry took the podium and had gold medals placed around their necks after a free dance competition performance with multiple flaws, while American couple Madison Chock and Evan Bates, whose performance was described as “nearly perfect” by CNN Sports, only scored a silver medal.

The French team beat out the Americans by nearly a full point, with an overall score of 225.82 points to 224.39. This upset ignited an immediate backlash and was widely criticized by fans since Cizeron made visible errors in their twizzle sequences in both the Rhythm and Free Dances.

Accusations that there was alleged nationalism from the French judge started after it was made public that the judge not only gave Chock and Bates the lowest score awarded by the nine-judge panel, but gave them a score 5.20 points below the average score posted by the remaining eight judges, Forbes reports.

With this win, Cizeron became the first ice dancer to win back-to-back gold medals after he also captured gold in 2022 with former partner Gabriella Papadakis.

Cizeron and Beaudry have only been skating together for a year after both of their former partnerships fell apart because of multiple scandals. Papadakis left after their gold medal win and accused Cizeron of being “controlling, demanding, and critical,” and Beaudry’s former partner and current boyfriend, Nikolaj Sorensen, was suspended for six years after sexual assault allegations came to light. His suspension has since been overturned pending review, but Beaudry has continued to publicly support him, and he was in the Olympic arena on Wednesday, cheering them on.

Fans immediately clocked that the judging seemed inconsistent with the performances and were outraged that the team with multiple accusations against them won gold. The International Skating Union, the sports governing body, responded to the controversy by standing behind its judges.

"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,” an ISU spokesperson said, via NBC. “The ISU has full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.”