Emma Smith
BBC Sport, Milano
The ice dancing competition at the Winter Olympics in Italy had an exciting finale.
American couple Evan Bates and Madison Chock, team gold medalists and three-time world champions, won silver, while Canadian pair Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier took bronze.
The champions, who received the highest scores from the judges in both rhythmic and free dance - the two segments of the competition - are a French-Canadian duo.
Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier-Daudry only began their official partnership last November, but they immediately 'clicked'.
Cizeron, who is 31, won gold in ice dancing at the 2022 Beijing Games, and a new partnership with Laurence Fournier-Baudry, who is two years older, brought him another gold.
Since the pair have been on the ice, Cizeron and Fournier-Baudry have now won five of the six major competitions they have participated in, including the 2026 European Championships in England.
They are now Olympic champions.
"From the beginning there were a lot of similarities in the way we trained and approached things... we had a lot of fun," Cizeron told reporters after the triumph in Milan.
Their beautiful free dance to the music from the movie "The Whale" (Whale) followed a technically flawless performance in the rhythmic segment to Madonna's song "Vog" (Vogue).
The combined scores from both parts of the competition earned them a gold medal.
While free dance gives couples greater freedom in their performance, scores in rhythmic dance are given for technical performance.
The judges determined that the French couple had a better technical performance than the American one, which, along with a better score for the free dance, earned them first place.
The objectivity of judging in figure skating is a controversy as old as the Olympics and a topic for another article.
And now there was a lot of intrigue on the ice, but that's nothing compared to the drama off it.
What was following Laurence and Guillaume on the eve of the Games?
Fournier-Baudry has competed for Canada and Denmark, but last year she was granted French citizenship through an emergency procedure, which allowed her to look for a new figure skating partner.
"None of this would have happened without the support of the Canadian Federation and the training center we worked at," she replied when asked how much credit for her gold goes to Canada.
"We have incredible coaches, the best of the best are in Montreal."
Previously, her current skating partner Sizeron ended his collaboration with Gabriela Papadakis, with whom he won gold at the 2022 Beijing Games and five world titles.
The two have been partners on the ice since their sporting beginnings.
But the breakup was extremely unpleasant.
Earlier this year, Papadakis published a memoir in which she describes her "unbalanced" relationship with Cizeron.
I felt like I was "under his control," she wrote, accusing her former partner of being "demanding."
Cizeron called the allegations a "smear campaign" and "false information" and says he is taking legal action against his former ice partner.
Papadakis, who has been a figure skating commentator since 2024, She was fired from her position as an analyst for NBC. before these Games due to "conflicts of interest".
It was the direct price of her memoirs.
"A challenge... a big challenge," Cizeron replied when asked by a BBC Sport reporter how he was preparing for the Winter Olympics because of many things off the ice.
"From the beginning, we tried to create our own bubble as protection and to support each other."
"We think the love we have for each other and for the sport has carried us through everything, kept our heads on our shoulders."
"We're enjoying those moments now, we don't want anyone to steal them from us," he said.
Fournier Baudry was no coincidence as a candidate for Cizeron's new partner.
She was previously the partner of Canadian skater Nikolai Sorensen, with whom she is in a romantic relationship.
But in 2025, Sorensen was sentenced to six-year suspension after a sexual assault allegation in 2012.
The accusation does not concern Fournier-Baudry but another person from the world of skating.
Sorensen called the allegations "false," while Fournier-Baudry publicly supported her boyfriend.
"I know my boyfriend 100 percent. I know him," she said in the Netflix documentary "The Glitter and the Gold" (Glitter and Gold) about international figure skating tours.
Anonymous complainant criticized is the position of Fournier Baudry, saying that her comments "contribute to creating a dangerous environment for skaters who want to report abuse."
Fournier-Baudry obtained French citizenship in November and has since refused to comment on her boyfriend Sorensen's case.
They may not be the most popular Olympic champions, but Laurence Fournier-Baudry and Guillaume Cizeron were the best on the ice in Milan.
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