The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan are now facing a growing scandal, amid accusations that a French judge deliberately gave rigged scores to the figure skating couple from her country and the American couple who would otherwise have won gold.
The International Skating Union (ISU) is still defending a decision to give France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron the first-place medal, according to Fox News on February 13. But the French judge gave the athletes from her country almost eight points over her score for the American three-time world champions. The judge is a woman with the improbable but appropriately vixenish name of Jezabel Dabouis, and she remains the center of controversy.
Chock herself told CBS News, “I think it's also important for the skaters that the judges be vetted and reviewed to make sure that they are also putting out their best performance. Because there's a lot on the line for the skaters when they're out there giving it their all, and we deserve to have the judges also giving us their all and for it to be a fair and even playing field.”
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She and her husband are considering an appeal of the free skate ice dance results, but have not yet moved to initiate such an appeal.
Others are much more emphatic in their demands for an investigation. For example, a Change.org petition references the 2002 Olympic SkateGate scandal and urges:
Recently, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, questions have arisen surrounding the judgment that awarded France's athletes, L. Fournier Beaudry and G. Cizeron, the Gold medal in Ice Dance. It is alleged that the scoring lacked transparency, and specific moves which should have attracted penalties were overlooked. Such discrepancies demand immediate attention to uphold the spirit of fair play and competition, which the Olympic Games are built upon.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Skating Union (ISU) must take decisive action to ensure that all judging in the Winter Olympics remains impartial and meticulous.
The petition already has more than 15,000 verified signatures as of publication.
One of the main points of the controversy is that while America’s Chock and Bates executed their routine almost flawlessly, the French pair made mistakes during their routine. Sometimes the level of difficulty in a routine can allow for one or two relatively small mistakes, but many people are arguing that the gold medal-winning skaters’ mistakes made it very suspicious that they received the extra almost eight points from Dabouis. Ultimately, five out of the nine judges did favor the Americans, who missed out on gold by less than two points thanks to the significant margin granted the French by Jezabel Dabouis, whose score was a “clear outlier,” according to Newsweek.
It does seem as if the Olympic committee and ISU ought to investigate, if only to ensure transparency. Otherwise, they are skating straight into an explosive scandal.
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