Bold claim: a single judge’s scoring swing changed the Olympic ice dance outcome, and that power needs review. This is the essence of U.S. Figure Skating’s plan to ask the ISU to re-examine the judging system following the 2026 Olympic ice dance results. The situation centered on a narrow 1.43-point margin that saw France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron edge out the U.S. pair Madison Chock and Evan Bates.
A source familiar with the matter said the federation intends to send a formal letter to the International Skating Union, not expecting a reversal but aiming to safeguard and support the athletes involved. The focal judge, Jézabel Dabouis of France, awarded the French duo a much higher free-dance score (137.45) than Chock and Bates (129.74) — and strikingly, Dabouis’ free-dance marks were the highest of all nine judges for Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron while being the only scores above 130 she gave any competitor. In contrast, five of the nine judges had Chock and Bates ahead at least once in the free dance, suggesting the French team could only win if the panel’s distribution favored them more broadly.
“Numbers tell the story,” the source explained. “Chock and Bates led five of the nine first-place ballots, so the only way the French could win was for the French judge to spread points as far as possible, which she did. Essentially she made the decision for the panel. That’s not right, and the judging system should guard against that.” A formal letter outlining these concerns is expected to be sent over the weekend.
Interpreting the judges’ scores is inherently tricky. The standard approach drops the high and low marks from the nine judges on each element and component, which makes precise attribution of influence difficult when there are ties. Notably, Dabouis gave the gold-medalists a sizable 5.74-point advantage in the rhythm dance phase, and her rhythm-dance score for Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron (93.34) was the only score above 87.6 she awarded to any team.
When totals were tallied, Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron captured the rhythm dance by 0.46 points and the free dance by 0.97 points. The ISU, via a spokesperson, emphasized that score variation is normal across panels and that multiple mechanisms exist to mitigate discrepancies, expressing full confidence in the fairness of the results.
Chock and Bates, who have claimed three consecutive world titles, were left puzzled but gracious. Bates acknowledged the subjective nature of the sport and the reality that sometimes deserving performances don’t translate into wins, insisting, at the core, they delivered their best performance and left the rest to the scoring system and the judges.
