U.S. ice dancing duo Madison Chock and Evan Bates won silver after their free dance on Wednesday, missing out on gold by less than a point.
MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — U.S. ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates earned the silver medal after Wednesday night’s free dance at the Milan Cortina Olympics by less than a point.
French skaters Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron earned a season-best 225.82 points to win gold despite several mistakes by Cizeron, including a glaring one during a twizzle sequence.
The score prompted a wave of criticism and controversy around a French judge and prompted Chock to call for more transparent judging.
“I think it would definitely be helpful if it’s more understandable for the viewers to just see more transparent judging and understand what’s really going on,” she told CBS News. “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. We deserve to have the judges also giving us their all and for it to be a fair and even playing field.”
Bates called Wednesday’s skate their “absolute best performance,” while Chock said the confusion over the result “does a disservice to our sport.”
The duo also delivered a season-best performance with a nearly perfect skate, finishing with 224.39 points.
“I think it’s hard to retain fans when it’s difficult to understand what is happening on the ice,” Chock said at a news conference. “People need to understand what they’re cheering for and be able to feel confident in the sport that they’re supporting.”
The scores included a French judge favoring the French skaters by nearly eight points in the free dance, while five of the nine judges favored the American team. The other three that gave top marks to Beaudry and Cizeron did so by a slim margin.
“We did speak to our coach, and we did talk to each other, and we know how we felt on center ice after we skated,” Bates said. “We felt like we delivered our absolute best performance that we could have. It was our Olympic moment. It felt like a winning skate to us, and that’s what we’re going to hold on to.”
Bates said fan support was “incredible,” and he noted an online petition calling on the International Skating Union and the International Olympic Committee to investigate the scoring.
“We haven’t actually seen it, we’ve just heard about it, but it means a lot that people are voicing their opinions on our behalf,” Bates said. “I think the way that we skated and the way we’ve approached chasing these goals hopefully has resonated with people at home, and even in our response I think hopefully that too can reflect the Olympic spirit.”
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