MILAN — Nearly two days after a controversial scoring decision resulted in American ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates taking home silver rather than gold, the noise hasn’t quieted down over whether a French judge helped the French pair Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron stand atop the podium.
On Friday, the International Skating Union said it stands by the judge in question, Jezabel Dabouis, who favored Beaudry and Cizeron by nearly eight points in the free skate over Chock and Bates. Five of the nine judges favored the American couple, with the remaining three choosing the French by a much smaller margin.
“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,” the ISU said, according to The Associated Press. The ISU added it has “full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.”
According to the official rules, the highest and lowest scores are deleted from the nine judges drawn for each segment and the average is taken from the remainder. That hasn’t stopped fans of the skaters from being upset.
More than 15,000 people had signed a Change.org petition as of Friday afternoon asking the ISU and the International Olympic Committee to investigate.
The petition alleged “that the scoring lacked transparency, and specific moves which should have attracted penalties were overlooked.”
Chock and Bates, who helped lead Team USA to a gold in the team skate earlier in the week, posted a season’s best 134.67 in the free dance, losing by 1.43 points to Beaudry and Cizeron in an upset.
“I think we put out our very best skates every time we took the ice,” Chock said in the press conference that night. “All four performances we had … they were flawless for us. We couldn’t have skated any better. We’re super proud with how we took the ice, how we handled ourselves every time. The rest is out of our hands.”
Beaudry and Cizeron’s partnership has been shrouded with controversy since its inception. Beaudry competed for Canada and Denmark previously before hastily getting French citizenship last year to partner with Cizeron after her previous partner, Nikolaj Sorensen, was banned for at least six years following a Canadian investigation into sexual assault allegations.
Cizeron had an acrimonious split with Gabriella Papadakis, whom he medaled with in Beijing. Papadakis, in a recent memoir, accused Cizeron of being “controlling” and “demanding,” which he has denied.
Subjective by nature, ice dancing — and figure skating as a whole — has long been marred by scoring issues, frustrating fans and, occasionally, leading to actual scandal. In a 2002 Winter Olympics incident dubbed, “Skategate,” French judge Marie Reine Le Gougne publicly said, then retracted, that she felt pressure to go with Russian skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, who had technical flaws, over the Canadian pair of Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, who didn’t commit a mistake.
The controversy rocked the skating world, eventually resulting in all four skaters getting gold medals and Le Gougne’s vote voided. It also led to changes in the sport’s scoring system.
Wednesday’s drama wasn’t quite Skategate, but it does little to help the sport when fans are left frustrated, confused and questioning the integrity of scores.
“Any time the public is confused by results, it does a disservice to our sport,” Chock told reporters earlier this week. “I think it’s hard to retain fans when it’s difficult to understand what is happening on the ice.” She added: “People need to understand what they’re cheering for and be able to feel confident in the sport that they’re supporting.”