Team USA figure skating duo Madison Chock and Evan Bates delivered a flawless routine in the free dance competition at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
But when the final scores were released, Chock and Bates narrowly trailed French pair Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron for top position on the podium.
Beaudry and Cizeron, whose routine included multiple mistakes, earned a score of 135.64. Chock and Bates scored 134.67.
A French judge, identified as Jezabel Dabouis, scored Chock and Bates nearly eight points below Beaudry and Cizeron. This score was a clear outlier, as no other judge scored the married American couple less than 130.
Many around the figure skating community, including members of Team USA, took to social media with public responses to this scoring controversy.
American figure skater Ellie Kam made her stance on the matter very clear in an Instagram post, declaring Chock and Bates the “true champions.”
“So inspiring. So elegant. So classy. True champions,” Kam wrote.
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Kam helped Team USA to a gold medal in the team event, earning a personal-best score of 135.36 alongside her skating partner Danny O’Shea. This performance was crucial in a closely-contested race against Team Japan.
O’Shea also took to social media with a response to Chock and Bates’ scoring controversy.
“Poise. Class. Champions,” he wrote on Instagram.
Kam, O’Shea, Chock and Bates all took home gold in the team event alongside fellow Team USA skaters Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Ilia Malinin.
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Kam is proud of the way Team USA battled to claim top spot on the Olympic podium.
“I think that we did such a good job at staying together as a team and trusting the process. We had a competition that was really rough in the beginning, but I think that that was all just part of the plan,” she said in an interview with People. “In order to get to the high point of success, you have to go through the nitty-gritty, the dirty … It just makes me even more proud of wearing this medal around our neck, because I know what type of work it has taken us to get here. We worked so hard.”
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